The Enhanced Games promised a flood of world records. The results told a different story

The pitch was simple. Remove the drug rules, pay athletes well, and watch the world records fall. The inaugural Enhanced Games, held on 24 May in a purpose-built arena in the car park of Resorts World Las Vegas, offered $250,000 to each event winner and a $1 million bonus for any officially recognised world record.

Forty-two athletes from 24 countries competed in 23 events across athletics, swimming and weightlifting. Competitors could choose to race “enhanced” or not, and the substances permitted had to be on the US Food and Drug Administration’s list of approved drugs.

By the end of the night, one world-record claim had been made. It was immediately disputed, and no governing body recognises it.

The one record

Greece’s Kristian Gkolomeev won the 50 m freestyle in 20.81 seconds, 0.07 seconds inside the official world record that Australia’s Cameron McEvoy had set in March. He claimed the $1 million bonus.

Critics questioned the timing system; the organisers dismissed the claims and said timing was handled by an ISO-certified provider. Gkolomeev had swum 20.89 in February wearing a full-body suit that does not meet World Aquatics rules. The organisers declined to say which performance-enhancing substances he had used, citing medical confidentiality.

World Aquatics, World Athletics, the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee condemned the event and do not recognise its results.

The sprints that weren’t

The most anticipated race, the men’s 100 m, was won by Fred Kerley in 9.97 seconds, well short of his own best and of the world record he had talked about breaking. Kerley, and Tristan Evelyn, winner of the women’s 100 m, both said they had competed without performance-enhancing drugs and had submitted to testing by the US Anti-Doping Agency beforehand.

The race was interrupted four times by false starts and an untied shoe. In an analysis for CBC News, Morgan Campbell argued that many of the night’s performances would not have caused a ripple in international competition.

There were individual improvements. The 35-year-old American swimmer Megan Romano, competing as an enhanced athlete, finished second in the 50 m freestyle, faster than she had swum at 22. Others knocked seconds off their personal bests.

What the organisers disclosed

The Enhanced Games published figures on what its enhanced athletes used: 91 per cent took testosterone or testosterone esters, 79 per cent human growth hormone, 62 per cent stimulants such as Adderall, 50 per cent metabolic modulators, 41 per cent erythropoietin (EPO) and 29 per cent anabolic steroids. Between events, the arena’s screens showed advertisements for performance products sold by the organisation’s own business; MIT Technology Review later described the event as a publicity stunt for that range.

What the experiment showed

It is tempting to treat the Enhanced Games as a test of what drugs can do for elite performance. It was not a good one. The fields were small, few competitors were at the peak of their careers, and the preparation windows were short: one swimmer said his enhancement protocol ran for eight weeks.

But the night did illustrate something that sports scientists have long argued: performance at the very top is built from many components, including years of training, technical skill, health, recovery and competitive experience against the best in the world. Drugs can change some physiological variables. They cannot supply the rest, and they carry health risks that the event’s own medical framework could not eliminate.

The athletes who came closest to the night’s promises were, for the most part, those who were already the best at their events. That is not a ringing endorsement of chemistry. It is a reminder of how much of elite performance cannot be bought.

If there are further editions, the question on which the project depends is whether athletes at the peak of their careers will risk their eligibility, and their health, to take part.