The first ever Enhanced Games, a controversial Las Vegas-based competition that openly permits competitors to use performance-enhancing substances banned from mainstream elite sport, concluded with only one athlete beating a recognized global world record — a result that falls far short of organizers’ earlier optimistic predictions.
Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev, a 32-year-old who has gone podium-less across four consecutive Olympic appearances, clocked 20.81 seconds in the men’s 50m freestyle event. That time beat the previous official world record of 20.88 seconds set by Australian Cameron McEvoy earlier this year. However, Gkolomeev’s new mark will never be formally recognized by global sporting authorities, due to the event’s permissive stance on banned substances. Gkolomeev also wore a polyurethane swimsuit, a design that is outlawed in all official international swimming competitions for the performance advantage it provides.
The Enhanced Games’ founding premise rejects mainstream anti-doping rules, arguing that performance enhancement is already widespread in elite sport but practiced in secret, and that open, regulated access to enhancement would create a safer, fairer playing field. All performance-enhancing substances used by athletes at the event are required to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and include testosterone, growth hormone, anabolic steroids and peptides — all substances strictly banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Of the 42 athletes competing across swimming, athletics and weightlifting, the majority admitted to using performance-enhancing substances, with organizers confirming 13 competitors set new personal bests. The invite-only event was held in front of a curated audience of roughly 2,500 guests, with no tickets made available to the general public.
Other high-profile competitors saw mixed results. American former 100m world champion Fred Kerley, one of the few athletes who competed clean, won the men’s 100m with a time of 9.97 seconds, far off his personal best of 9.76 seconds. British swimmer Ben Proud, 2024 Paris Olympic silver medalist in the 50m freestyle, took gold in the 50m butterfly with a time of 22.32 seconds, just 0.05 seconds off Andrii Govorov’s existing world record, a margin that left him disappointed. Fellow British Olympic swimmer Emily Barclay won the women’s 50m freestyle in 24.09 seconds, roughly half a second slower than the current world record. Hafthor Bjornsson, the former Game of Thrones actor best known for playing The Mountain and a former professional weightlifter, also competed but failed to beat his own existing deadlift world record of 510kg.
For his world record swim, Gkolomeev took home $250,000 in prize money for the win plus an additional $1 million bonus for the unofficial record. The Greek athlete called the windfall life-changing, saying: “It’s not bad at all. This is going to change my life to the good, for sure. It’s a big help for me and my family. And yeah, I’m going to continue next year. Maybe I’ll break it again.”
The event has faced fierce condemnation from global sporting governing bodies since its announcement. World Aquatics, the global governing body for swimming, labeled the Enhanced Games a “circus, built on short-cuts”. The IOC and WADA have described the concept as “immoral”, “dangerous” and “irresponsible”, while World Athletics president Lord Coe called any athlete choosing to compete “moronic”. Multiple national governing bodies have issued formal rebukes to participating athletes, and some have issued formal bans for competing.
Founded in 2023 by entrepreneurs Aron D’Souza and Maximilian Martin, the project has secured high-profile backing from Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr. Prior to the event, Martin predicted that athletes would break “quite a few” world records, a projection that fell far short of the single record set at the 2025 inaugural competition.