Enhanced Games Wanted a Bigger Wow, Has a Fix in Mind

The debut of the drug-friendly Enhanced Games didn't exactly rewrite the record books, so organizers are trying something simpler next time around: more money. As Clara Molot reports for Vanity Fair, Sunday's Las Vegas experiment—where (some but not all) athletes openly took performance-enhancing drugs, then tried to break world records—produced just one such record and, therefore, just one $1 million payout, to swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev. Investors seemed equally unimpressed. with the company's stock falling more than 40% the day after the event.

Cofounder Maximilian Martin isn't conceding failure. He and CEO Christian Angermayer say the problem wasn't the drugs but the roster: Few active superstars signed on, in part because the IOC has threatened Olympic bans even for mere attendees. And sprinters tend to make the most money, which makes the "opportunity cost ... higher for them," says Angermayer.

As a result, Molot writes that the roster was "made up largely of retired athletes or competitors who had never quite reached the level required to break world records in the first place." To lure true elite sprinters, they're now dangling $10 million for anyone who can erase Usain Bolt's 100-meter world record at the 2027 Games. Read the full story for more.