On May 24, 2026, a new kind of athletic competition made its debut. The Enhanced Games brought together Olympic medalists, world record holders, and some of the most recognizable names in strength sports to compete on a single stage, with one fundamental difference from any event that came before it.

Performance-enhancing drugs were not just permitted. They were part of the point.

The first event drew a notable field. Olympic swimmer Cody Miller, who won gold at the 2016 Rio Games, competed in the pool. Thor Björnsson, widely recognized as “The Mountain” from Game of Thrones and the 2018 World's Strongest Man, stepped onto the weightlifting platform. Fred Kerley, one of the fastest men in the world, lined up on the track.

What Are the Enhanced Games?

Founded by entrepreneur Aron D'Souza, the Enhanced Games is an international athletic competition that explicitly allows the use of substances banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Athletes who choose to use performance-enhancing drugs may compete openly, without penalty, alongside athletes who choose not to.

The competition spans three disciplines: swimming, track and field, and weightlifting. To raise the stakes further, the Enhanced Games offered $1 million to any athlete who broke a world record at the event.

Here is a full breakdown of what happened.

Swimming

Swimming drew some of the biggest names and the biggest moment of the games. 

Kristian Gkolomeev swam the men's 50m freestyle in 20.81 seconds, breaking the world record of 20.88 seconds and earning the $1 million prize the Enhanced Games put up for any world record broken at the event.

Other swimming winners included Cody Miller in the men's 50m and 100m breaststroke, Emily Barclay in the women's 50m freestyle, Ben Proud in the men's 50m fly, Megan Romano in the women's 100m freestyle, and Marius Kusch in the men's 100m fly. 

Several athletes marked personal bests, indicated in the official results. Hunter Armstrong won the men's 50m backstroke while competing as a non-enhanced athlete, finishing in 24.21 seconds.

Full swimming results against world records:

*Personal Best

Track

The track competition featured the men's and women's 100m sprint, with multiple athletes competing in each event.

In the men's 100m sprint, Fred Kerley posted the fastest time of 9.97 seconds against a world record of 9.58 seconds.

In the women's 100m sprint, Tristan Evelyn won with a time of 11.25 seconds against a world record of 10.49 seconds. 

No world records were broken in the track events.

Weightlifting

The weightlifting competition covered snatch and clean and jerk events across multiple weight classes for both men and women, with a deadlift event rounding out the day.

Thor Björnsson, the 2018 World's Strongest Man, competed in the men's deadlift and lifted 475kg, falling short of the 510kg world record. Mitchell Hooper lifted 440kg in the same event. On the platform, Dylan Cooper posted a personal best of 205kg in the men's 110kg clean and jerk, and Beatriz Pirón set a personal best of 118kg in the women's clean and jerk.

Weightlifting results:

*Personal Best

What Makes It Different

Whether the Enhanced Games become a fixture in the sporting world is an open question. What the first event showed is harder to argue with.

One world record fell in the pool. Personal bests were posted on the weightlifting platform. Some of the fastest and strongest athletes in the world showed up and competed at a high level. The performance data from the first event is real, whatever your view on how it was produced.

For anyone interested in the outer limits of human athletic performance, that's the story worth watching. The Enhanced Games is a new answer to an old question: how fast, how strong, and how far can the human body actually go?

The first answer came in at 20.81 seconds.