When the world first heard whispers of a multi-million dollar sports event backed by elite athletes openly embracing performance-enhancing drugs, skepticism was swift.
Many in the sporting world largely rolled their eyes, writing off the entire Las Vegas spectacle as a high-tech, hyper-ambitious disaster waiting to happen.
‘Even friends of mine joked that maybe it’s “Fyre Festival” and that it’s not going to happen,’ Enhanced co-founder, Christian Angermayer, told the Daily Mail.
But that initial skepticism is now rapidly melting away, as 42 elite athletes prepare to step onto the blocks on May 24 at a custom-built arena at Resorts World Las Vegas.
The star-studded roster features massive sporting icons, including US Olympic icon Hunter Armstrong, powerhouse strongman Hafþór ‘The Mountain’ Björnsson and British star Ben Proud, to name but a few.
The Games, backed by Donald Trump Jr and Peter Thiel, is looking to give these competitors the chance to push boundaries with the help of regulated steroids and growth hormones – with a $1million prize on the line for any World Record breakers.
42 world-class athletes are preparing to battle it out at the Enhanced Games over the weekend
A rendering of the Enhanced Games shows what the arena will look like during the competition
Enhanced Games co-founder Christian Angermayer spoke exclusively to The Daily Mail
For Angermayer, this venture isn’t a sudden marketing stunt but, instead, the natural pinnacle of a highly-successful 28-year career at the forefront of biotechnology.
‘Way before the Enhanced Games, I’ve been in biotech,’ he explained. ‘My very first company, 28 years ago, is a very successful biotech company.
‘Since I’m in that field, it’s the most natural thing for me, as I have access to all these amazing scientists. From so many angles, the Enhanced Games is where everything I’ve been working on for a long time finally came together.’
But despite his endeavors in the biotech space, many critics continue to diminish the Games and suggest they undermine the previous norm which has been in place.
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe has led the ferocious institutional charge, publicly savaging the entire multi-million dollar venture as ‘grotesque’.
Angermayer, however, is laughing off the heavy mainstream condemnation, actively viewing the furious public outrage as a massive, free marketing windfall.
‘I want to send a heartfelt thank you to Lord Coe for the invaluable marketing support he has given to the Enhanced Games,’ Angermayer exclusively told the Daily Mail.
‘He literally saved us hundreds of millions of dollars in marketing that someone would have otherwise had to invest to get us to where we are now,’ the mogul smiled.
‘He will always have a free VIP ticket whenever he wants to come, I love him.’
USA star Hunter Armstrong – who has won two Olympic gold medals – will be competing
British swimming star Benjamin Proud will also take to the pool in Las Vegas this weekend
Sebastian Coe has been one of the loudest critics against the Enhanced Games – but co-founder Angermayer said: ‘He will always have a free VIP ticket whenever he wants to come’
The prominent backer saved his sharpest institutional critique for swimming’s governing body, World Aquatics, and the International Olympic Committee.
The feud boiled over when authorities threatened lifetime bans for elite stars like Hunter Armstrong, who has won two gold medals at the Olympics and is choosing to compete in Vegas this weekend.
‘Interestingly, when World Aquatics came out and said that any athlete who goes -even clean, non-enhanced swimmers – would be banned forever, it backfired.’
‘It was so absurd because when you actually cheat in the traditional Olympics, they only ban you for a year or two,’ Angermayer told the Daily Mail.
‘Their stance was so morally bankrupt that many young athletes said, ‘You know what? I’m not a slave to World Aquatics.’ It actually helped us look like the good guys.’
Taking aim at the IOC, he added: ‘We are the transparent ones, we’re the fair ones, and we are the ones who pay the athletes well, which I think is morally the right thing to do. The IOC is holding their billions and not giving anything back to the athletes.
‘When we started Enhanced Games, I told my co-founders that I believe we are the good guys and that we are on the right side morally, intellectually, and scientifically.’
The tech pioneer is utilizing a wave of clinical data to argue that the underlying framework of the event is centered entirely around athlete recovery.
A rendering of the Enhanced Games venue in Las Vegas
Angermayer, pictured with actress Uma Thurman, has a long career in the biotech industry
‘We are releasing a preview of that data, which shows that the majority of the performance-enhancing effects come from repairing training damage,’ he added.
‘The debate in society will shift to whether it is morally okay not to allow recovery drugs when sports cause so much physical damage,’ he predicted.
In a statement provided by Enhanced, they revealed: ‘The clinical trial encompassed 36 of the 42 athletes competing. Of those 36 athletes, 2 are competing naturally.
‘Six athletes did not participate in the study with two of those six competing naturally. Athletes participating in the study were permitted to consider substances across five approved categories, including testosterone esters, anabolic agents, peptides and growth factors, metabolic modulators, and stimulants.
‘Only legal substances under US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines were studied. No peptides currently on the FDA’s Category 2 banned list were included in the research.’
Dr Guido Pieles, Chair of Enhanced’s Independent Medical Commission and Independent Scientific Commission, said: ‘We have been regularly assessing the athletes throughout the study period and we’re very pleased with the results and the overall health picture each participating athlete has demonstrated during the study.’
The athletes are undergoing the treatments and procedures in the hopes of sealing a lucrative $1 million payday, should they break a World Record on the day. Overall, Enhanced is offering up to $25 million to the athletes that are competing.
Looking far beyond Sunday’s final heat on the Vegas strip, the biotech billionaire has incredibly grand, long-term blueprints to scale the league into a global empire.
‘We want to do it every year and continually add more disciplines. We deliberately started with three core categories to deliver a tightly focused spectacle.’
Data released by the Enhanced Games revealed the results of a ‘clinical trial’ which was undertaken by 36 of the competing 42 athletes
‘We also want to branch out into an ‘Over 50′ category where beloved, retired sports stars can return to compete using these protocols,’ the founder revealed.
‘They won’t break absolute world records, but they might break their own personal bests, which is highly relatable to the everyday consumer.’
The long-term roadmap also includes a relentless schedule of high-profile international stunts designed to showcase human optimization at its peak.
‘Beyond the annual games, we also plan to launch smaller, bi-monthly pop-up events. Think of an Enhanced trekking team climbing Mount Everest or an Enhanced cycling team breaking cross-country records.
‘We want to systematically go through the Guinness Book of World Records and break every single record’.
Reflecting on preparations for the inaugural event, he added: ‘We have more than $30 million in sponsorship, which for a first-year sports event is unheard of.
‘We have achieved all of this despite the understandable hesitation from sponsors who wanted to make sure it wasn’t Fyre Festival.’
