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On May 24, 2026, Las Vegas hosts the Enhanced Games. A sort of Olympics where any kind of performance enhancer is not only allowed but celebrated.
Aka the doping Olympics.
The idea of improving physical performance, amplifying human abilities, enhancing vitality, and even postponing death has been part of science fiction for centuries. But increasingly, these experiments are leaving the page and entering the real world — well outside the purely medical arena.
One of the most visible examples is millionaire Bryan Johnson, on a personal mission to reverse time and achieve the health of an eighteen-year-old. He is forty-seven. His Blueprint Protocol includes shockwave therapy applied across his body, fifty-four daily pills — vitamins, medications, and supplements — plus an extremely rigid diet and daily routine that most people would find unbearable.
So far, the only consistent source of evidence that it is working is Johnson himself. His former medical team and independent researchers tend to disagree.
This is where transhumanism enters the picture. It is an intellectual and philosophical movement that aims to transform the human condition through emerging technologies, pushing the boundaries of human evolution toward its maximum potential. The debate around the ethics of such technologies is vast and ongoing. Transhumanists are those who support the movement. Transhumans are those who have already had their bodies modified.
The athletes of the Enhanced Games are, in a sense, exactly that. Transhumans.
Transhuman figures are nothing new in science fiction. Cyberpunk in particular has always been fascinated by them. In Ghost in the Shell, what remains human in many characters is their consciousness alone — the ghost, as the story calls it, living inside a body that has long since stopped being human at all.
In the Enhanced Games, the enhancement of human performance comes through substances like anabolic steroids, hormones, and growth factors. Although these are FDA-approved compounds used to treat specific medical conditions, their use in sport is banned and carries significant risks. The Enhanced Games proposes to change that equation — or at least to test it openly.
The event was founded by Australian businessman Aron D'Souza. Among its investors is Peter Thiel, technomagnate behind Palantir, alongside Christian Angermayer, another millionaire who built his fortune through biotechnology, bitcoin, and psychedelics.
The libertarian argument is straightforward: every person has the right to do what they want with their own body, without government restriction. The permission, they argue, also means that enhancement can happen under proper medical supervision — almost like a controlled clinical study — rather than in the shadows where it already happens anyway.
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| Bryan Johnson and his son Talmage. In one of the most controversial experiments of his Blueprint protocol, Johnson received blood plasma transfusions from his own son in an attempt to reverse his biological age. |
For people like Bryan Johnson, and the many others quietly searching for ways to extend and optimize their lives, the Enhanced Games represent something close to a dream. A laboratory for testing technologies that may eventually reshape how society — and science itself — views human performance and its limits.
What does a world record broken at the Enhanced Games actually mean? It will not be recognized by official institutions. But it opens a door to a new scale of human capability. And doors, once opened, tend to stay that way.
The Enhanced Games are one more sign that humanity is entering a new era. A cyberpunk era, in my view. Perhaps not identical to the versions that appear in comics, books, films, and games — which already differ significantly from one another. But recognizable enough.
This process feels inevitable to me. Not because it cannot be stopped, but because deep down, most people do not want to stop it.