Enhanced Games: The Olympics on Steroids

Under the blazing Vegas sun, giant billboards advertise "Live Enhanced" as the baritone voice of a sports announcer pretends to introduce British swimmer Ben Proud and other athletes.

The announcer is practicing at a new open air arena hosting one of the most controversial events in recent sporting history: the Enhanced Games.

Think Olympics on steroids. Literally.

The inaugural competition on Sunday will feature dozens of elite athletes using performance-enhancing drugs to try and break world records in track, weightlifting and swimming.

Some $25m (£18.6m) in prize money is up for grabs - with cash prizes for winners. World records in certain events, being eyed up by the likes of US sprinter Fred Kerley, pay a $1m (£740,000) bonus.

The drugs they use must be legal, and approved by the Federal Drug Administration. But substances like testosterone and human growth hormone - banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency - are not only celebrated here, they're encouraged and for sale.

The project was founded by entrepreneurs Aron D'Souza and Maximilian Martin in 2023 and has attracted backing from prominent investors including billionaire Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr.

Health experts warn that anabolic steroids and growth hormones can cause strokes and cardiovascular damage, among other risks.

Event organisers claim Enhanced will push the limits of human performance while critics, especially in the Olympic movement, dismiss it as an affront to the spirit and founding principles of competitive sport.

'We're being up front and honest'

"You don't have to be pressured or use drugs in order to be the best," says Travis Tygart, CEO of the US Anti Doping Agency, USADA.

He tells the BBC that while there are clear failures with the Olympics' anti-doping protocols, the answer is reforming the system, not to dope.

Athletes, he says, need to be assured the Olympics are clean and cheats will not be tolerated.

"We don't want kids to have to say, 'in order to win an Olympic medal, when I'm 18 or 20 years old, I have to inject myself every day in the rear end with a potentially dangerous drug.'"

But Enhanced, the company behind the games, claims it is bringing out into the open what it says is an undercurrent of many athletes cheat and take performance-enhancing drugs in the shadows.

Packed into a ballroom at Resorts World casino, Enhanced athletes answered media questions for two hours, but only one - strongman Hafthor Bjornsson who hopes to break his own deadlift record of 510kg (1,124.4 pounds) - would say which drugs he was taking. Other athletes were tight lipped.

Bjornsson, who played the Mountain in Game of Thrones, says he's open about his steroid use because it's accepted in the professional strongman world.

American sprinter Shania Collins says the fact that those taking part in the games admit to doping, already gives them more integrity than cheaters.

"We're being up front and honest and transparent from the start," she tells the BBC. "So how can you challenge our integrity when we're forthright with the information?"

Some sporting governing bodies have publicly rebuked athletes for choosing to compete in the games.

UK Athletics' chief executive Jack Buckner said he was "appalled" when it was revealed former Great Britain sprinter Reece Prescod had signed up in January. UK Anti-Doping (Ukad) has called the event a "reckless venture".

Meanwhile, GB Aquatics has said British swimmer Ben Proud will not be selected again for Britain's Olympic team if he competes at the Enhanced Games.

Big money involved

Proud, who won the silver medal in the 50m freestyle at the Paris Olympics in 2024, is hoping to break the world record using performance-enhancing drugs and win a million dollars on Sunday.

If he wins the race but doesn't break the world record, he will still make $250,000 (£185,000).

"There's no money in sport," Proud told the BBC before the games. "I was 30 and had just come off a silver medal, what future path do I follow?"

Proud, who has been widely condemned for joining the Enhanced Games, has said it would take 13 years of winning World Championship titles to earn this kind of prize money.

Enhanced has already paid a doped up swimmer a million dollars for breaking a record, during one of the trials it hosted ahead of Sunday's competition.

Of the 42 athletes competing at the Enhanced Games on Sunday, most will be using testosterone and some will also be using human growth hormone and stimulants like Adderall.

But not everyone will be doping - some are competing clean.

American swimmer Hunter Armstrong has said he "definitely" doesn't want to dope for the games, adding: "I personally have taken pride in getting as far as I can on natural God-given talent."

He plans to compete clean for a shot at the money and then return to compete at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. Whether he can is unclear, given the outcry from many sports bodies responsible for selection.

However, the US Anti-Doping Agency's Tygart told the BBC as long as an athlete passes drugs tests to qualify for the Olympics, there's nothing to stop them from taking part from a doping perspective, but he points out that World Aquatics has already threatened to ban any swimmers competing in the Enhanced Games.

Wider worries for society?

Earlier this month, the Enhanced Group - the company behind the competition - began trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

And the competition is seemingly being treated as an opportunity for Enhanced to sell performance-enhancing medicine and supplements online.

This sparks broader concerns for some, at a time when social media is awash with offers to buy unregulated peptides and pressure on people to look a certain way.

Joe Vennare, founder of Fitt Insider, which analyses the health and wellness industry, feels normalising performance-enhancing drugs will bring unknown health and cultural consequences.

He says people have the right to use legal medical interventions, but is concerned some people are doing so at the expense of being fit and having a healthy diet.

"Kids are using social media filters, they're getting Botox injections," he tells the BBC. "They're having body dysmorphia - especially young men, in this case at record numbers."

None of these criticisms of the Enhanced Games are likely to go away any time soon.

Neither the athletes taking part, nor the invite-only crowd in Vegas, seem to be deterred.

Walk around here and you hear a lot about "biohacking", "human optimisation" and pushing the body beyond its natural limits.

So what's happening here may end up being much bigger than a niche sporting event. It's about whether sport is becoming a testing ground for a much bigger cultural shift.