Imagine the Olympics on Steroids (Literally)
In this edition of TPO Explains, we break down the Enhanced Games, explaining how the Olympics-style competition openly allows performance-enhancing drugs, why athletes are signing up, and the debate over whether it celebrates or endangers human performance.
What are the Enhanced Games?
The Olympics on steroids… literally.
Founded in 2023 to “push the boundaries of human performance,” the games are an international event for elite athletes to compete across three sports while using performance-enhancing drugs. The goal is breaking world records. Winners get cash prizes, and anyone who beats a record gets a $1M bonus.
The games three years in the making also function as a big infomercial. The same drugs and supplements the athletes use are available for purchase from Enhanced Games.
Wait… they can do that?
Technically, yes. It’s a gray area.
The drugs are FDA-approved, legal, and prescribed by a physician. But PEDs are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (aka WADA), which isn’t a law enforcement agency; it just sets the standards for orgs like the Olympics.
Enhanced has chosen to play by a different rulebook.
What are PEDs?
Performance-enhancing drugs (or PEDs) are substances that can alter your body, typically to a degree that isn’t considered natural. Think: steroids, testosterone, and human growth hormone.
PEDs can do things like increase muscle mass and strength, improve endurance, and speed up recovery time, theoretically giving athletes a competitive edge. WADA bans them in traditional sports, and they don’t come without health risks. Side effects range from cosmetic (acne, hair growth, etc.) to life-threatening, and some dangers might not surface for years.
Critics argue PEDs reduce sports to biological experimentation rather than a true show of human excellence, and some condemn Enhanced for endangering athletes just to sell their products.
So, why do people do it?
Supporters argue athletes are already doping under the table. The Enhanced Games, they say, are just upfront about it—and it’s safer since athletes are monitored by a physician.
There’s also the cold hard cash… where many Olympians end up in the red, Enhanced Gamers are competing for a chance to juice their wallets.
CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE
Freed from the fear of death by Jesus' death and resurrection, Christians think of our bodies differently than the rest of the world. Seek wisdom from your Creator when you’re unsure about how to care for His creation.
“For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well.”
Psalm 139:13-14 (CSB) (read full passage)