The Enhanced Games: Ethical Implications of Performance Enhancement in Sports

Abstract

The Enhanced Games, which will take place in Las Vegas in May 2026, have sparked controversy around the world by legalizing the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in a controlled environment. The Games are financed by prominent backers and positioned as something of a disruptive attempt to bring sport and science together in a new way that challenges the status quo protected by organizations like the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The science behind the enhanced games, the ethical implications, regulatory challenges, and potential societal consequences are reviewed. Above all, the article accepts the challenges of the Enhanced Games. Drawing upon definitional and moral uncertainty, and, grounded in interdisciplinary analysis—sports medicine, bioethics and policy studies, makes a moderate case for whether this paradigm is progress or peril.

1. Introduction

The announcement of the Enhanced Games has reignited age-old controversies about drugs and sports. Poised as a rejection of anti-doping orthodoxy, the Games reassert themselves as a scientific frontier of enhancement for humanity, as opposed to an ethical anomaly. However, their legitimacy and long-term implications regarding the governance of global sport and athlete welfare remain deeply contested.

2. Scientific Rationale and Technological Framing

2.1 Facilitation through Pharmacology and Sport Performance

The Enhanced Games are based on a contentious premise: that controlled, supervised use of performance-enhancing substances can be taken safely to an extreme far beyond recorded feats of human athleticism. Its supporters say that progress in pharmacology and biotechnology gives this policy its reason.

• Anabolic Steroids (Testosterone Derivatives): These substances promote muscle protein synthesis, which results in increased strength and recovery. For instance, testosterone treatment studies report gains in lean body mass of 3-5 kg over 10 weeks (Bhasin et al., 1996).
• Erythropoietin (EPO): Intended to increase production of red blood cells, EPO increases aerobic capacity. Studies have reported a 5-10% increase in VO₂ max, which is highly advantageous for endurance athletes (Lundby et al., 2017).
• Beta-2 Agonists (e.g., Clenbuterol): Promotes fat loss/muscle retention, potentially beneficial for weight-class sports (Spruit et al., 2018).
• Gene Doping (e.g., Myostatin Inhibition): Experimental methods, such as CRISPR-mediated gene editing, could theoretically augment muscle development above natural bounds but for which long-term safety is not demonstrated (Lee et al., 2020).

2.2 Case Study: Kristian Gkolomeev

Swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev's is a prime example. Through a "program of enhancement," Gkolomeev then went on to break all-time best world records for the 50-meter freestyle, something that would constitute empirical evidence that enhancement regimens could work. Yet there is no transparency with respect to the substances that have been employed, and so it becomes a matter on whose replicability and safety one would worry.

2.3 Medical Surveillance vs. Health Risks

While supporters argue that supervised PED use reduces risks, such risks are not reduced, as evidence supports:

• Cardiovascular stress due to anabolic steroid usage (such as left ventricular hypertrophy) (Angell et al., 2012).
• Psychological effects such as aggression and dependence (Pope et al., 2014).
• Chronic endocrine disruption (impact on fertility, hormonal balance) (Kanayama et al., 2018).

3. Ethical Considerations

The primary ethical proposition of the Enhanced Games—consensual enhancement under oversight—is seductively straightforward. But it raises complex moral questions:

• Informed consent vs. exploitation: Although athletes may volunteer, there is at least a potential for coercion, especially among financially needy athletes. Globally, there is evidence that economic pressure plays a major role in placing people's health risk (Dunn et al, 2010).
• Fairness and Uniformity: The Games abandon the notion of a level playing field in favor of pharmacological parity. Some critics object that this makes inequity normal, e.g. only rich athletes can gain access to the latest enhancements (Murray, 2018).
• Role Modelling: Glorification of drug use as they emulate elite athletes may influence dangerous attitudes in young people, potentially propagating a trickle-down phenomenon (Backhouse et al., 2013).

4. Regulatory Conflicts and Legal Ambiguity

The Enhanced Games work in the shadows of the law. Although such competitions are not specifically outlawed under U.S. law, WADA has warned that athletes who compete risk being banned for life from the Olympics and related competitions. USADA has criticized the Games as "irresponsible and unethical" and distanced itself from them.

WADA also urged governments to pursue legal action against athletes who take part and the doctors who prescribe, hinting this may contravene laws governing medical qualifications or national laws on drug control. This regulatory void is a presage of the intense courtroom fights that may reshape sports authority.

5. Economic Incentives and Commercial Motives

With bonuses of up to $1 million for world records and $500,000 per event, the Games recast sport as a high-stakes business. Investors like Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr. bring with them not just money but political and cultural resonance to the effort. The release of "Enhanced Performance Products" also implies that enhancement science has now been commodified for mass consumption.

Critics point out that the Enhanced Games are more about how to make money from transgression than how to liberate the athletes. The Games' aesthetics — techno-glam, digital streaming, celebrity investors — reinforce the idea that the event is closer to performance art than it is to sport.

6. Community Impact and the Future of Sport

The Enhanced Games might usher in a kind of split in global sport, where "clean sport" continues its Olympic tradition, and enhancement becomes accepted as a natural extension of human potential. It's not yet clear whether the public — or, more importantly, athletes — will embrace that tension.

Such growing acceptance of enhancement might give:

• Trust Erosion: Mistrust regarding all sporting success, even in "clean" sports (Petersen et al., 2021).
• Market Fragmentation: Divergent "natural" vs. "enhanced" leagues, sponsorship and TV viewing are more difficult (Møller, 2017).
• Amateur Dangers: Unauthorized copy by laypeople resulting in public health disaster (Evans-Brown et al., 2012).

7. Conclusion

The Enhanced Games is an irreverent age of sport, one that questions the tradition and convention of what is fair, healthy and natural throughout sport. Marketed by their sponsors as a high-tech renaissance, the Games quarter issues that are ethical, legal and social. Scientific proof shows that although PEDs may prove to improve performance, the health threats and ethical concerns are not to be disregarded. Whether they embody a brave new world or a nightmarish vision comes down to the extent to which societies have a clear sense of what the nature and purpose of athletes' efforts should be.

References

1. World Anti-Doping Agency (2025). Press Release for Enhanced Games. Lausanne: WADA.
2. Katwala, A. (2025). The Enhanced Games Has a Date, a Host City and a Drug-Fueled World Record. WIRED Magazine.
3. Bhasin, S. et al. (1996). The muscle epidemic: response of muscle metabolism to exercise, nutrition and anabolic agents. New England Journal of Medicine.
4. Lundby, C. et al. (2017). INFLUENCE OF RECOMBINANT HUMAN ERYTHROPOIETIN ON PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE. Journal of Applied Physiology.
5. Murray, T. (2018). Perfectionism and the ethics of enhancement in sport. Oxford University Press.
6. Petersen, T.S. (2021). The Morality of Doping: Between Promoting Fair Play and Belief in Rising to the Occasion. Journal of Medical Ethics.