Over 40 international athletes are set to compete in the controversial Enhanced Games on Sunday, May 24, 2026, at a custom-built arena inside Resorts World Las Vegas.
The single-night event allows performance-enhancing drugs and offers a $25 million total prize pool.
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Organizers position the competition as a platform to push human performance boundaries.
The venture is backed by Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr.'s venture capital firm, 1789 Capitol, while the publicly-traded Enhanced Group uses the event to research drug effects and sell supplements.
Medical professionals have raised significant ethical concerns about the health risks associated with the event's permissive stance on banned substances.
"I understand that there's a very large commercial opportunity for this company, but it is something I think borders on the lines of ethics," said Dr. Aaron Baggish, a professor of medicine at the University of Lausanne.
Baggish declined an invitation to join the event as a doctor.
Baggish noted that public understanding of safety is flawed because FDA approval does not equal safe usage when drugs are taken in extreme doses for athletic performance.
"We have to be careful not to confuse short-term success with long term implications," he said.
The medical professor warned that while athletes may complete the event without immediate visible issues, high doses of substances like testosterone greatly increase the risk of heart disease over time.
"But what happens to them three years from now, five years from now?" Baggish asked.
