Have you ever wondered what would happen if the Olympics let all of its athletes dope? How many world records would we see tumble if athletes could take any performance enhancing drugs they liked? Soon, you might be able to find out thanks to the Enhanced Games.
change the trajectory of not just sport, but humanity as a whole.”
Headed by its President Aron D’Souza, the Enhanced Games will break from the Olympic mold by not only allowing athletes to dope, but by also paying them to take part. D’Souza says he wants to “break world records and fundamentally change the trajectory of not just sport, but humanity as a whole.”
Despite the first Enhanced Games being slated for 2025, many have dismissed the idea as a joke, believing it will never see the light of day. However, a fresh wave of investment from some big names in business, namely Coinbase’s former Chief Technology Officer Balaji Srinivasan and former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel, has made the Games seem more like a reality.
As part of their mission, the organizers also want to recognize the records or medals held by those who have doped and been punished for it in the past, stating: “We believe that all human achievement needs to be celebrated.” If you’re wondering what some of those most famous incidents are, we’ve got you covered.
Tyson Gay
USA
2012
4 x 100m Relay
37.04 seconds
In the London Olympics in 2012, it was the Jamaican track team that stole most of the headlines thanks mainly to Usain Bolt. Among the records they broke during that event was the 4x100m relay world record. While the USA team finished second with a time of 37.04, they made the headlines years later for all the wrong reasons.
Gay failed drug tests in the summer of 2013
The US Anti-Doping Agency determined that American runner and 2012 relay team member Tyson Gay had taken performance enhancing substances. Gay failed drug tests in the summer of 2013, first using a product that contained a prohibited substance in July 2012. That was less than three weeks before his first race at the London Olympics.
As a result, the Olympic Committee stripped the entire USA 4x100m relay team of its silver medals in 2015. Gay was stripped of his results in all of the races he had in that span between 2012 and 2013.
Ben Johnson
Canada
1988
100m Sprint
9.79 seconds
In 1988, Ben Johnson shocked the world when he set a new world record for the 100m Sprint. Racing at the Summer Olympics in Seoul, he became the first Canadian sprinter since Percy Williams in 1928 to win the 100m at the Olympics, breaking his own world record in the process to set a new 9.79-second time.
Fast forward to 2012 and Ben Johnson explained in an interview that he can no longer watch the race because of what followed it. Just 24 hours after crossing the finishing line in Seoul and Johnson had failed a drugs test with traces of the banned steroid stanozolol in his urine. He forfeited his gold medal as a result.
Perhaps alleviating some of the blame from Johnson’s shoulders, six of the eight finalists in that 100m race in Seoul would fail drugs tests. This included Linford Christie and Carl Lewis. The doping was so prevalent that writer Richard Moore deemed it the “dirtiest race in history.”
Tatiana Kashirina
Russia
2014
Weightlifting
327kg
Russian weightlifter Tatiana Kashirina lost it all when she was found guilty of doping in 2013. In addition to losing three world titles and multiple world records, she received an eight-year ban from the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2023. The court disqualified her results in a four-year period between April 2013 and June 2017 when she was doping.
won every competition she entered from October 2012 to November 2018
Among the records she lost, Kashirina lifted world records of 155kg in the snatch and 193kg in the clean and jerk at the 2014 Worlds. That gave the super-heavyweight a world record total of 348kg for the event, the most lifted by any woman ever. She won every competition she entered from October 2012 to November 2018.
The revelations regarding Kashirina’s doping came to light as part of an investigation into a state-run doping program in a Moscow laboratory. It led to more than 200 doping charges brought against Russian athletes in a range of sports and a ban on Russia competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics, the 2020 Summer Olympics, and the 2022 Beijing Games.
Lance Armstrong
1999-2005
Cycling
Seven Tour de France titles
In the world of high-profile doping cases, none reach higher than American Lance Armstrong. The cyclist won the Tour de France for the first time in 1999 before going on to win the event six more times by 2005. He then retired to spend more time with his family, surely to be recognized as a great of American sports forever – that is, until the doping allegations surfaced.
Some of his former teammates came forward to acknowledge their use of performance-enhancing drugs, implicating Armstrong too. This prompted the United States Anti-Doping Agency to accuse Armstrong of doping and trafficking drugs in 2012. He was formally charged and stripped of his achievements from August 1998 onwards, including seven Tour de France titles and an Olympic bronze medal.
Despite consistently denying that he doped at any point, Armstrong finally gave in to the accusations in 2013. In a now famous interview with Oprah Winfrey, he confessed to using performance enhancers for each of his Tour wins from 1999 to 2005.
Jürgen Schult
1986
Discus
74.08m
Our final dubious world record actually still stands, despite many questioning its legitimacy given the likelihood of doping. East German Jürgen Schult competed at four consecutive Olympic Games from 1988 to 2000, winning the gold medal for East Germany in 1988 and a silver medal for a reunified Germany in 1992.
Even Schult never came close to matching his own record
It was before this that he actually set his record though, with a throw of 74.08m in a meet in East Germany in 1986. It’s a record that still stands more than 30 years later, and many believe that this will never be beaten due to the use of chemical help. Only four men have come within four meters of the record within this decade. Even Schult never came close to matching his own record until his retirement.
With doping controls in the 1980s being lax to say the least, Schult’s critics suggest that he was given oral tuinabol as part of an East Germany state-sponsored doping program throughout the 70s and 80s. The athlete always denied this, however. It is also important to note that Schult never failed a drugs test and continued to compete until the year 2000.