{"id":217,"date":"2026-05-22T21:22:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T21:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=217"},"modified":"2026-05-22T21:22:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T21:22:18","slug":"not-quite-an-snl-all-drug-olympics-but-enhanced-games-are-no-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=217","title":{"rendered":"Not quite an SNL \u2018All Drug Olympics.’ But Enhanced Games are no joke."},"content":{"rendered":"
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By EDDIE PELLS<\/p>\n

LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 The first, best and most hilarious rendition of the \u201cAll Drug Olympics\u201d came courtesy of \u201cSaturday Night Live.\u201d It was 1988 when Soviet weightlifter \u201cSergei Akmudov,\u201d geeked up on anabolic steroids, Nyquil and \u201csome sort of fish paralyzer,\u201d tried to clean and jerk 1,500 pounds \u2014 three times the existing world record \u2014 only to have his arms snap off at the shoulders.<\/p>\n

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Blood and gore gushed from where his arms used to be. Laughter cascaded as the on-site reporter, Kevin Nealon, threw it back to Dennis Miller in the studio.<\/p>\n

It took almost 40 years, but finally, the event that tackles that age-old bar question, \u201cWhat would happen if we just let them all take drugs?\u201d has arrived.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Enhanced Games,\u201d featuring 50 athletes who have been free to use performance enhancers of their choice and will compete in track, swimming and, yes, weightlifting, is set for Sunday in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Is it just a bad joke? Depends on who you ask.<\/p>\n

\u201cA big success for us would be the athletes being healthy, safe, better paid and happier than they\u2019ve ever been before,\u201d said Max Martin, the CEO and co-founder of Enhanced.<\/p>\n

Mainstream sports ignoring Enhanced \u2014 they\u2019re not the only ones<\/h4>\n

The Associated Press spoke with a handful of leaders in the Olympic and anti-doping world, most of whom would not agree to speak on the record, even to denigrate the Enhanced Games, lest they lend oxygen to an idea they largely portrayed as a cynical money grab for washed-up athletes.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Benjamin Cohen, director general of the International Testing Agency that spearheads testing for the Olympics along with dozens of individual sports, was among those who would comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard some people calling it the \u2018Doping Olympics,\u2019 but even using the word \u2018Olympics\u2019 (is a stretch),\u201d Cohen said. \u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s a one-day event, it\u2019s 2,000 people eating popcorn and there\u2019s a music concert. It\u2019s (50) athletes. It\u2019s not right to put it on the same level.\u201d<\/p>\n

The germ of the idea for the Enhanced Games formed in 2022. Then, the event was largely seen as a disruptive, potentially paradigm-shifting sports event meant to poke at the mainstream anti-doping world\u2019s troubled enforcement efforts and Olympic sports\u2019 inability to pay a living wage to a disturbingly large percentage of their athletes.<\/p>\n

It has since evolved into a new-age online pharmaceutical company, which describes itself as a \u201cglobal movement that develops scientific insights, medical discoveries and record-breaking sports events to unite humanity and inspire innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Enhanced, which became a publicly traded company May 8 and has seen its initial stock price drop by around half to $5.24 as of Friday afternoon, made some of its biggest headlines early by touting its $250,000 first prizes and bonuses of up to $1 million for those who break world records in top events like the 100-meter sprint.<\/p>\n

Those marks, of course, would not count in any real sports record book. They have to come in events sanctioned by, say, World Athletics or World Aquatics, both of which require athletes to pass drug tests for any result to count.<\/p>\n

Another number that might or might not be real is the $12 million that sprinter Fred Kerley says he\u2019s making. Arguably the biggest name among the 50 athletes competing, Kerley, the 2022 world 100-meter champion whose personal best is 9.76 seconds \u2014 .18 short of Usain Bolt\u2019s world record \u2014 has been doing live streams leading up to the event.<\/p>\n

In one exchange about how much it would cost a shoe company to sign him, he said: \u201cMy contract was $12 million altogether, so if they\u2019re not willing to pay 12-plus, they can kiss my ass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experts debate what an enhanced record, or no record, would mean<\/h4>\n

All the 2,500-or-so tickets for the specially built venue on the Strip that includes a pool and track are going to people chosen by the organization. The Vegas betting line? Inside the sports book attached to the venue, there was no mention of Enhanced and the ticketwriters didn\u2019t know what the Enhanced Games were.<\/p>\n

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What would it mean if somebody breaks a record? What would it mean if nobody does?<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it will be difficult to draw conclusions from one race this weekend,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cFor Usain Bolt to have broken a world record at the Olympics, it means he had to perform at a certain level for a number of months in the lead-up to qualify to get to that stage. It\u2019s not the same as a one-day competition where you had a six-month doping regimen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, an Enhanced swimmer, Kristian Gkolomeev of Greece, set an unofficial record (20.89 seconds) in the 50 meters and received the $1 million bonus from the group. He was using performance enhancers and a speed suit that has been banned by world swimming authorities.<\/p>\n

His ability \u2014 or Kerley\u2019s \u2014 to cash in for the $1 million this week won\u2019t be the only measure of success (or failure) for this one-day event.<\/p>\n

Michael Ashenden, a former drug fighter in the Lance Armstrong era who argued in a 2024 paper that the Enhanced Games weren\u2019t such a radical idea, has been working with the group\u2019s medical commission as an independent advisor.<\/p>\n

He says an anti-doping system that oversees elite sports doesn\u2019t reflect the real world and its needs.<\/p>\n

Enhanced, which openly lists an available menu of what have long been sports\u2019 most worrisome performance enhancers \u2014 nandrolone, erythropoietin (EPO) and human-growth hormone \u2014 emphasizes that athletes who choose those drugs are under strict medical supervision and are only using substances that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.<\/p>\n

The records from their training and testing will be used to publish papers and take a stab at that old question: What would happen if we let the athletes dope?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe same science that allows an athlete to enhance might allow a 70-year-old to regain their strength, their recovery, and their energy,\u201d Ashenden said. \u201cThe Enhanced Games are using the stadium to show what medicine might do for the rest of society.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that works, and the stock price goes up, then Enhanced, which has been bankrolled by billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel and others, would view this as a success.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a 25-year-old training for your first marathon, if you\u2019re 65 and you\u2019re looking for more energy to take your grandkids to the playground and play with them, enhancements can help you be the best at any point in time that you can be,\u201d said Martin, the CEO.<\/p>\n

Anti-doping researcher Oliver Catlin, whose father, Don, was one of the godfathers of the profession, pointed out the upcoming 60th anniversary of the start of the modern-day drug-fighting movement in sports. It was triggered by the death at the Tour de France of cyclist Tom Simpson, whose autopsy blamed overuse of amphetamines and other stimulants for his death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have friends of enhanced sports who believe it can be done legally and safely,\u201d Catlin said. \u201cBut you have to look at the other side of the coin, too. There\u2019s a reason we have clean sport, and it\u2019s because some of these substances have literally been implicated in the death of athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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___<\/p>\n

AP sports: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/sports<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Athletes cleared to use performance enhancers of their choice will compete in track, swimming and weightlifting in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\nNot quite an SNL \u2018All Drug Olympics.’ But Enhanced Games are no joke. - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=217\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Not quite an SNL \u2018All Drug Olympics.’ But Enhanced Games are no joke. - Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Athletes cleared to use performance enhancers of their choice will compete in track, swimming and weightlifting in Las Vegas.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=217\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-22T21:22:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/fcf66c6acea1de0b58dd1c507cfec819.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=217#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=217\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/13065d40d633843429ac57d4e5c06f9b\"},\"headline\":\"Not quite an SNL \u2018All Drug Olympics.’ But Enhanced Games are no joke.\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-22T21:22:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=217\"},\"wordCount\":1274,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=217#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/fcf66c6acea1de0b58dd1c507cfec819.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Sports\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=217#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=217\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=217\",\"name\":\"Not quite an SNL \u2018All Drug Olympics.’ But Enhanced Games are no joke. - 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