I am sitting in the sweltering Nevada heat watching a man struggle to lift a bar over his head. If the man manages to do it, he will win $250,000.
The man is Boady Santavy — a two-time Olympic weight-lifting contestant from Canada — and he has muscles that look culled from the Marvel Cinematic Universe: massive, cartoonish arms that might as well belong to a superhero rather than a real human.
Santavy is attempting to beat the world record for the men’s snatch — a lift of 183 kilograms, or approximately 403 pounds. After a tortured few seconds, Santavy drops the bar — an official “no lift” — and, with a look of animated dismay on his face, hobbles away, visibly cursing.
Santavy is one of a small horde of 42 athletic contestants — weight lifters, swimmers, and track runners — that have gathered in Las Vegas over Memorial Day weekend to compete in the Enhanced Games, a unique (and, by now, quite notorious) athletic competition in which almost all of the participating athletes are on performance enhancing drugs.
Broadly derided by critics as the “steroid Olympics,” the games have taken the deeply unprecedented step of juicing many of their athletes to the gills — anabolics, testosterone, peptides, human growth hormones, and more are all in circulation. All of that chemical enhancement has taken place under the watchful eye of a team of medical professionals. Indeed, the competitors — a hodgepodge of athletes from different ages, skill levels, and backgrounds — spent 12 weeks in the United Arab Emirates at an elite compound, where they trained for the weekend’s event while working closely with doctors who tailored their “protocols” — or drug cocktails — to their individual needs.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – MAY 24: (L-R) Kristian Gkolomeev, Shane Ryan and James Magnussen are seen during the Enhanced Games at Resorts World Las Vegas on May 24, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Image Credits:(Photo by Greg Doherty/Getty Images f …