Sometime in April this year a humanoid robot raced past human runners in a half marathon in Beijing, beating the human record by more than six minutes! In May this year, another different sporting event occurred. In Las Vegas, USA the Enhanced Games were held over four days. The events held on a specially constructed stadium had human athletes from all over the world compete in swimming, athletics and weight lifting. What was special about these games was that the participating sportspersons could formally use performance enhancing drugs under medical supervision. Such drugs are banned in mainstream sports. 42 athletes from 24 countries competed in these new kind of games.

The games organizers assert that through these games they want to redefine what the human body is capable of with performance enhancing drugs. They want to change the sports arena forever. Founded by entrepreneurs Aron D’Souza ( from Australia) and Maximilian Martin ( from USA) in 2023, the Enhanced games have received backing from prominent investors, including billionaire Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr. Each winner was paid $2,50,000/- and a bonus of 1 million dollars was paid to those who broke an existing world record.

Challenging the accepted norm that sports persons should not use performance enhancing drugs, and compete naturally and organically; these games are trying to change the paradigm. The arguments for enhanced sports that the organizers have canvased include that anti-doping agencies are not consistent, mainstream sports do not pay players enough, they ensured that the performance enhancing drugs would be taken as per medical advice, and it would herald the dawn of a new era that would redefine the limits of human achievement and endeavour in sports.

In this first ever event while the vast majority of the 42 competing sports persons were taking banned substances such as testosterone, EPO and anabolic steroids, three athletes who were competing clean also won. However, despite the help only one world record got broken. On the last evening the Greek swimmer ­Kristian Gkolomeev swam 20.81sec in the men’s 50m freestyle. That was just 0.07 quicker than the world record. None of the winners or record breakers will find mention in the world sports records; however each of them earned a large amount of money.

Organisers say that around 250,000 people watched the event live on YouTube. The organizers promise to come back with better and swifter games next year.

Is this the future of sports? At the 2026 Enhanced Games no great records were really set. Maybe, as an athlete said at the games “This proves that winning takes more than chemistry.”

Disruption of all kinds is now a part of our lives. A new world running on AI, technology, chemicals and machines is taking shape. Are we, especially our children and grandchildren going to be equipped to deal with all this? We can simply hope that the human spirit and ingenuity will see them through.

Published in Lokmat Times in June, 2026