The Sporting Event Where Doping Was the Star

Enhanced Games took place in a $50 million Las Vegas venue built for the event. Athletes competed in running, weightlifting, and swimming under the Enhanced banner, a sporting event and supplement company backed by over $300 million in venture capital. The premise allowed any FDA-approved substance, with winners earning up to $1 million for breaking world records, while non-doping athletes could also compete for the same prize pool. The event was broadcast live on YouTube and Roku and designed for short vertical clips. Athletes doped under close medical supervision as part of a clinical trial in Abu Dhabi, using confidential protocols involving combinations of 37 substances, including stimulants, hormone-related drugs, and growth hormone.

"Gathered on a blue carpet under bright lights, inside a $50 million Las Vegas venue that had been built just for them, the athletes of the Enhanced Games-colloquially known as the "doping Olympics"-looked like action figures. When they stood next to other people, the effect was different but no less uncanny; it was as if they'd been Photoshopped, blown up 25 percent compared with the rest of their species."

"The premise was that anyone could take any FDA-approved substance; whoever broke a world record would win up to $1 million. (Non-doping athletes were welcome to compete for the same prize pool, if they could handle the odds.) The event would be broadcast live on YouTube and Roku, but really, it was designed to be clipped into vertical video-"built for social media, not for television," Enhanced's CEO, Max Martin, told reporters proudly during a press conference on Saturday. Every competition would be less than a minute."

"The athletes were doping under the close supervision of a team of doctors, as part of a clinical trial conducted this past spring in Abu Dhabi. Each athlete's regimen-Enhanced prefers the more science-y term protocol-is kept confidential as a matter of safety and trade-secret protection: no copycats. But collectively, the competitors were on some combination of 37 substances, including Adderall, beta-blockers, human growth hormone, and five forms of testosterone."

Read at The Atlantic