The inaugural Enhanced Games took place to much fanfare in Las Vegas on May 24 2026. An event that has attracted much controversy, the games are designed to showcase the prowess of high-profile athletes who openly take legal performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) to maximise their sporting potential.
Masterminded by sports media and wellness company Enhanced Group Inc., the games offered an unprecedented US$25 million (£18.6 million) in prize money across track, swimming and weightlifting disciplines.
With its reputation for glitz and excess, Las Vegas felt like an apt backdrop for the event which offered an arena for bio-hacking billionaires, venture capitalists and transhumanists (who seek to optimise human performance and lifespan) to fully testrun their disruptor vision of sport.
Like the surrounding casino floors, this was a highly orchestrated and tightly controlled environment, where every aspect was designed and curated with one objective: to grab attention.
Rather than a pure sporting competition, the event could more accurately be described as an elaborate “sportainment” marketing campaign. It seemed designed to generate brand awareness and funnel people towards the Enhanced website to sell its telehealth platform and range of performance and longevity products.
No expense was spared. This invitation-only event was primarily populated with content creators, social media influencers and potential investors. Though we requested permission to attend and paid our own way, many present told us they had been provided with all-expenses-paid trips. Consequently the crowd felt manufactured and at times the atmosphere felt flat compared to other big sporting events.
Complimentary food, drink and branded products were all available in exchange for posts pushing the brand to hundreds of millions of followers across health, wellbeing and lifestyle coaching channels.
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