Pro-doping enhanced games are the Olympics’ fault

Adam Minter

Performance-enhancing drugs destroy the bodies, minds and reputations of athletes. Nonetheless, a group of investors, including Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr., see a business opportunity. They recently announced the first edition of the Enhanced Games - a kind of doping Olympics in which athletes are allowed and even encouraged to take performance-enhancing drugs - will be held in Las Vegas next May.

It’s a perverse concept, but that hasn’t stopped four Olympians from already signing on. Other athletes will likely follow, lured by millions of dollars in prize money and appearance fees.

The actual Olympics have nothing to do with this, but the world’s most popular sporting event isn’t blameless. Its business model, under which athletes are paid little - if anything - creates the opportunity for something as warped as a sporting event that encourages doping to emerge.

Consider the dilemma faced by Kristian Gkolomeev, an accomplished 31-year-old swimmer who has competed in the last four Summer Olympics for Greece. By his own admission, it hasn’t exactly been a financially lucrative existence. In 2016, for example, the Greek government supported some of its top Olympians with stipends of less than $1 000 a month. Then and now medal winners receive lucrative bonuses, but Gkolomeev - like most Olympians - has never won one.

Enter the Enhanced Games. Last year, in hopes of drumming up interest in the event, organizers offered a $1 million bounty for breaking the men’s 100-meter freestyle swim. Gkolomeev signed up, juiced himself, and sure enough, “broke” - a term that should be used loosely when it involves steroid usage - the record in February. In late May, at the Enhanced Games announcement, he was unapologetic when he told reporters: “A successful year at the Enhanced Games for me is more than I could make in 10 careers.”

That’s a sorry commentary on the current state of Olympic sports such as swimming. After all, it’s not as if the International Olympic Committee is hurting. Lucrative media rights contracts and sponsorships allowed the organization to earn $7.6 billion between 2021 and 2024. What happens to that cash? The IOC says 90% of it is distributed to organizations throughout the Olympic movement, from National Olympic Committees to host cities.

Unfortunately, most of that money doesn’t reach competitors. Instead, it’s devoted to things like training facilities, host city stadiums and executive salaries. According to a 2020 report by Global Athlete, an athlete welfare organization, between 2013 and 2016, only 4.1% of IOC and NOC funds went to contestants.

The situation doesn’t appear to have improved over the last decade. Last year, a congressionally mandated report found that around 26% of American participants in the Olympic and Paralympic pipelines earn less than $15 000 per year. Athletes in developing countries often have it worse. In Kenya, for example, some who trained for the 2024 Olympics received allowances of roughly $7.50 a day. Bonuses for winning medals can make up some financial ground. In Kenya, a 2024 gold medal was worth around $23 000; in the US, it earned $37 500.

That’s a nice check, but once an athlete spreads it out over four years (or more) and accounts for intensive, often full-time training, it’s far less impressive. US Olympians, for example, report spending an average of $21 700 annually on just competition fees and memberships.

That compensation and expense structure isn’t an accident or oversight. The modern Olympic games were launched by a European aristocrat who expected athletes to compete for the joy of sport, not money. That sentiment has remained stubbornly intact even as the games have evolved into a multi-billion-dollar advertising platform for the world’s biggest brands.

Last year, for example, the IOC reacted furiously when World Athletics, the governing body for sports such as track and field, announced plans to pay $50 000 to gold medalists in its events. From the IOC’s perspective, compensation only serves to widen the gaps between more and less privileged countries and competitors. It’s a tone-deaf response that highlights how out of touch - and perhaps ambivalent - the Olympics are with the lived reality of the athletes who generate its revenue.

The Enhanced Games are built to exploit the oversight. “One of our core principles is we want to make our athletes as rich as possible,” explained Aron D’Souza, president of the sporting event, in a May interview with Men’s Health.

There will be ample opportunities to do that in Las Vegas. The Enhanced Games plan to host competitions in three categories: swimming, track and field, and weightlifting. Each event will feature a $500 000 purse, with the winner earning $250 000. In addition, everyone competing will receive an appearance fee and is eligible to win bonuses for “breaking” world records (as Gkolomeev did).

That’s potentially a lot of money, though it’s not likely to be enough for the world’s top Olympians - those who might win Olympic gold. They’d be forfeiting their reputations and chances at sponsorship deals.

But the Enhanced Games doesn’t need that kind of competitor. After all, enhancement is all about taking someone who can’t win a race or set a record and turning them into an athlete who can. There are many people who will never touch a medal podium who will be eligible for that role.

For anyone who cares about the integrity of sports, this is a tragic outcome. And it won’t be the last of its kind. As long as the Olympics and other elite sporting competitions remain tethered to outdated beliefs of compensation, there will be opportunities for exploitation. Over time, each instance will only serve to erode the public’s confidence in the fairness of competition.  |  Bloomberg 

Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of sports. He is the author, most recently, of “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale."