It’s got billionaires, world champions and director Ridley Scott on board. But would an athletics competition where taking drugs is encouraged put the honesty back in sport – or cause rifts, risks and addictions?

It’s summer 2025. A large athletics stadium somewhere in Europe buzzes with crowds of people. Down on the track, eight men line up for the 100m final. Eight men pumped full of performance-enhancing drugs. Up in the control room, director Ridley Scott is asking for closeups on their faces. One of these men is about to obliterate Usain Bolt’s 100m world record, which has stood for over 15 years. Perhaps they all are. It’s certainly possible: just the day before, a host of men ran the marathon in under two hours. The world record for the mile, which has stood for over a quarter of a century, has just been beaten by a guy with bionic implants in his legs. Out in the centre field, a javelin thrower wearing AI glasses with real-time decision support has secured another world record. The feats of the previous year’s Paris Olympics are long forgotten amid this celebration of human achievement.

“It promises to be one of the most compelling television events of all time,” says Aron D’Souza, the man behind the Enhanced Games. His idea is an alternative to the Olympics where performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), and even technological enhancements, are not banned but actively encouraged. It will be a battle of the biohacked.