Better Games promised a revolution. Athletes on supervised drug regimens, unencumbered by Olympic anti-doping rules, were going to point out us what the human body is admittedly able to. The event was transhumanism in motion – a glimpse into humanity’s athletic future.
What he actually delivered was a single world record, broken by a fraction of a second, by the identical swimmer who had claimed the dignity within the pilot event the previous 12 months.
Enhanced Games introduce potential health risks to athletes by allowing them to take performance-enhancing substances. I’ve argued before that folks are only okay with dangerous sporting events, like boxing, when the entertainment is sweet enough. Better games appear to fail this test.
Set up in 2023 and dubbed the “Steroid Olympics” by critics, Enhanced Sports scrapped anti-doping rules and allowed athletes to make use of a big selection of performance-enhancing substances – testosterone, growth hormones, peptides, stimulants – under medical supervision.
The company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in May 2026 with a much-hyped enterprise valuation. $1.2 billion.
The pitch was as much theoretical as industrial. The event’s founder, Australian businessman Aaron D’Souza, coined the rise as a difficulty of individual freedom. He said The event would “break world records and fundamentally change the trajectory of not just sport but humanity as a whole”. His vision Science and sport were to “redefine human boundaries”.
Importantly, higher games were sold on results. D’Souza promised. Spectators will see faster, stronger athletes than they’ve ever seen before. We were led to imagine that a brand new generation of superhumans would break old world records.
A disappointing evening
In spite of Organizers claim That the event “changed the world tonight”, Better Games fell far in need of its guarantees.
Of the 22 events, just one world record was broken. Kristian Gukolomev, wearing a futuristic supersuit, finished the lads’s 50m freestyle in 20.81 seconds – 0.07 seconds under the prevailing world record. However, he had already set a comparable time in a. Demonstration swimming years ago.
More damaging to the central thesis of the event: three players who He said they are clean won the event. In athletics, Fred Kerley won the lads’s 100m, Tristan Evelyn the ladies’s 100m, while Hunter Armstrong won the lads’s 50m backstroke. The event clearly didn’t produce dramatic performances for the higher athletes.
The ethical debate surrounding dangerous sports has at all times focused on cost-benefit evaluation. every game Takes a risk For the athlete’s body, health and long-term well-being. We accept these risks when the sport creates enough compulsion to justify them.
This was the issue that hung over higher games. As journalist Jamie Timson put it. Saturday: Is the juice price squeezing? For many viewers, the reply was no.
If doped athletes were routinely breaking records and rewriting our understanding of human performance, there may be an actual conversation about whether the spectacle justifies the risks. But it didn’t occur. The performances were, by and huge, unremarkable. Enhanced Group Stock crash down The event worn out nearly half its value, hitting an all-time low inside days of the event. Market response suggested skepticism concerning the project’s long-term appeal.
An alternative to the Olympics?
Part of the appeal of the Olympics is that we all know athletes are (in theory) on a level playing field, competing purely on talent and training. We can argue about whether this is definitely true, but the parable is sensible. It gives results at stake.
The Enhanced Games wanted to exchange it with something raw: pure, unfiltered human potential with the ceiling removed. But if the ceiling doesn’t actually move much, you have got a less reliable version of the thing you were trying to exchange.
When I used to be on BBC Radio 5 Live last week, I said that the success of Enhanced Games would depend entirely on what it produced. If the outcomes were disappointing, it would not establish itself as a everlasting fixture on the sports scene. That’s exactly where we landed.
It wasn’t a sports revolution, but a one-night event in Las Vegas that did not appear to exhibit a dramatic leap in athletic ability. The moral query – are the risks price it – is answered not by philosophers or regulators, but by the market and the scoreboard.
If juice doesn’t produce results, why would an extract be price it? Better games may return, but on this evidence, there’s little reason to think it’ll ever be greater than a curiosity.