This weekend, dozens of athletes who’ve gotten the green light to take advantage of performance-enhancing drugs will go head-to-head in the “Enhanced Games.” Those competitors have had the opportunity to harness a number of different substances to gain an edge, and we’ve gotten some insight into which ones they’ve turned to more than any other.
Virtually every major sport has found itself grappling with a doping scandal courtesy of athletes who’ve undermined the integrity of the game by turning to performance-enhancing substances to boost their strength, endurance, ability to recover, and other factors that give them an unfair advantage over people who do things the right way.
Anyone who watched Major League Baseball in the 1990s or saw athletes from the Soviet Union do their thing at the Olympics in the previous decade got a glimpse at the borderline superhuman feats you can pull off with the help of PEDs, and those were just a couple of the many cases that led to a global crackdown around the turn of the millennium.
The World Anti-Doping Agency was formed in 1999 to spearhead the war against the many illicit substances that leagues and organizations around the planet routinely test for, and athletes who are flagged for using ones that are banned can face some serious sanctions.
However, there’s one upstart that has decided to go against the current by encouraging competitors to juice in the form of the Enhanced Games.
These are the most popular PEDs among athletes participating in the Enhanced Games
In 2023, an Australian businessman named Aron D’Souza announced his plan for the “Enhanced Games,” a competition that was quickly dubbed the “Doping Olympics” due to the fact that it revolved around athletes who were actively encouraged to take advantage of FDA-approved PEDs for a competition consisting of events in swimming, track, and weightlifting.
The inaugural event was initially slated to unfold in 2024, and after a two-year delay, it will go down on the Las Vegas Strip outside Resorts World on May 24th.
The lineup of participants features a number of accomplished athletes who are angling to set world records that won’t actually count, including Australian swimmer and three-time Olympic medalist James Magnussen, American sprinter Fred Kerley (who has two Olympic medals of his own), and Hafthor Björnsson, the former World’s Strongest Man who played “The Mountain” on Game of Thrones.
According to a press release, 36 of the 42 athletes competing in the Enhanced Games also took part in a clinical study that tracked the PEDs they turned to while training, and the organizers provided some insight into what they’re working with by compiling a list of the most popular ones:
- 91% used testosterone or testosterone esters
- 79% used human growth hormone (hGH)
- 62% used stimulants like Adderall)
- 50% used metabolic modulators along with anabolic agents to support protocols
- 41% used erythropoietin (EPO)
- 29% used anabolic steroids
- 5% used hormonal support therapies
There is also an interesting twist, as two competitors, swimmer Hunter Armstrong and sprinter Tristan Evelyn, will be competing as “non-enhanced athletes” who did not take any PEDs and will theoretically serve as a control in the events they take part in.
The former, who will be wearing a swimsuit that is banned in most sanctioned races, turned to the Enhanced Games to fund his training for the 2028 Summer Olympics, but there is still a chance he ends up being banned simply for taking part.
However, it’s hard to blame him for taking a gamble when you consider the winner of each event will get $250,000 as well as the $1 million bounty that’s been placed on world records.
The post New Data Reveals Which PEDs Are Being Used The Most By Athletes Competing In The ‘Enhanced Games’ appeared first on BroBible.
New Data Reveals Which PEDs Are Being Used The Most By Athletes Competing In The ‘Enhanced Games’
Pinoy Human Rights
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