The Olympics on Steroids

AT FIRST IT WAS DISMISSED AS A CRAZY JOKE. MAKING THE ENHANCED GAMES A REALITY NEEDED A PETER THIEL POSSE, A COUPLE OF RETIRED SWIMMERS, SOME MAGA MONEY, AND A WHOLE LOT OF DRUGS.

- BY Amit Katwala

ON FEBRUARY 25, 2025, the Australian swimmer James Magnussen stood on the starting blocks at a swimming pool in North Carolina with a million dollars and his reputation on the line. Magnussen, a triple Olympic medalist and world champion in the 100-meter freestyle, had been retired from professional sports for six years. But he had restarted his career to join the Enhanced Games, a kind of Olympics on steroids. This is meant literally: The event, which encourages athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs, is scheduled for May 2026 in Las Vegas.

Its founder, Aron D'Souza, is a slick-talking Peter Thiel acolyte who believes throwing off the shackles of drug testing can help push humanity to the next level. Enhanced, the company behind the Games, has secured millions from Thiel, Donald Trump Jr.'s 1789 Capital, and others, and praise from the likes of Joe Rogan. But the reaction from the sporting establishment has been split between horror over the health implications and skepticism over whether the event will ever actually happen.

At the time of his February swim, Magnussen was the only athlete to have publicly said he'd be willing to compete. He'd come to the Greensboro Aquatics Center for a secret time trial. If he could beat the world record time in the 50-meter freestyle-swimming's flagship event-he'd win a million-dollar prize from Enhanced, and D'Souza would get to prove his many doubters wrong by demonstrating that a cocktail of substances usually banned from elite sport could turn an ex-athlete into the fastest swimmer on Earth.