Enhanced Games swimmer 'breaks world record'

The Enhanced Games - a controversial new event which promotes banned performance-enhancing drugs - says one of its athletes has beaten a long-standing world record.

Organisers said Greece's Kristian Gkolomeev swam 20.89 seconds in a 50m freestyle time trial in the US in February, 0.02 seconds quicker than the world record set by Brazil's Cesar Cielo in 2009.

Gkolomeev, who finished fifth at the 2024 Olympics in 21.59, began taking banned substances after g up for the Enhanced Games in January.

At a glitzy launch in Las Vegas on Wednesday, the Enhanced Games announced the city as the host of its inaugural event from 21-24 May 2026.

The Enhanced Games are planned to be an annual competition, initially comprising short-distance swimming, sprinting and weightlifting, where participants will use drugs banned from elite sport.

It has been criticised for endangering athletes' health and undermining fair play.

However, it has also attracted heavyweight backing from a venture capital fund headed up by Donald Trump Jr, the US president's son, and billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel.

For his 'world record' in North Carolina, USA, 31-year-old Gkolomeev was wearing a full-length polyurethane 'supersuit', which was banned from competition by swimming authorities a few weeks after Cielo set the world record in one.

However, in another attempt in April, Gkolomeev swam 21.03 in textile 'jammer' shorts, which comply with current World Aquatic regulations.

That time is 0.01secs faster than anyone has gone without the aid of 'supersuits', beating a mark set by American nine-time Olympic champion Caeleb Dressel.

The Enhanced Games say the two times are legitimate, with Gkolomeev's swims recorded using the same timing equipment deployed at the Olympics, staged at a certified pool which has hosted the past four US Open events, and overseen by experienced officials.

Neither mark will be recognised by World Aquatics.

"The Enhanced Games are not a sporting competition built on universal values like honesty, fairness and equity: they are a circus, built on shortcuts," read a statement from swimming's world governing body.

"The enduring power of athletes to serve as role models for children and adults alike relies on their talent, hard work, respect and friendship. That's what we see in our champions and in our competitions, and that's what we'll continue to showcase."

Gkolomeev received a $1m prize for beating a world record time, an incentive that the Enhanced Games have used to lure athletes since being was founded by Australian entrepreneur and lawyer Aron D'Souza in 2023.

"The Enhanced Games gave me the resources and the team to unlock a new level of performance - and now the whole world can see what's possible," said Gkolomeev, whose previous 50m freestyle best was 21.44, winning silver behind Britain's Ben Proud at the European Championships in Edinburgh in 2018.

He added that his body shape changed considerably between doping for two weeks in advance of beating Cielo's record in Feburary and then going quicker than Dressel in textile shorts in April.

"On the second attempt I was on a full two-month cycle," he added.

"I had an extra 10lbs of lean muscle – we did a pretty good job with my coach in that short amount of time to get used by my new strength and weight in the water. It was a very good result."

The Enhanced Games did not reveal what substances he had taken, citing personal confidentiality and concern that others would follow Gkolomeev's regime unsupervised. It said they were prescribed "medically and legally".

Organisers say they allow participants to take only "medically prescribable and legally approved" substances under clinical supervision, and that they are confident they will comply with the Drug Enforcement istration laws in the US.

Ukraine's Andrii Govorov, the 33-year-old 50m butterfly world record holder, and 21-year-old Bulgarian Josif Miladinov, a European 100m butterfly silver medallist, have also signed up.

Govorov announced his retirement from Olympic sport this week.

"This choice wasn't easy," he wrote on Instagram., external

"I spent a long time reflecting - putting everything I care about on the scale. Competing in Los Angeles [in 2028] was my dream. But life had other plans."

The recruitment of Gkolomeev, Govorov and Miladinov is a coup for the Enhanced Games after critics claimed it would struggle to convince established names, still in their prime, to cross the divide.

Australian former world champion James Magnussen, 34, came out of retirement to the Enhanced Games in 2024, but his attempt to beat the 50m freestyle world record fell well short, recording a best time of 22.73.

The Enhanced Games have aspirations to have a 100-strong roster of participants in next year's event.

Organisers will build a four-lane 50m pool, a six-lane sprint track and a weightlifting venue at Resorts World in Las Vegas.

The project also plans to market "performance and longevity enhancements" to the general public this summer.

The Enhanced Games have been roundly criticised by senior figures in anti-doping and sports istration.

Travis Tygart, chief executive of the US Anti-Doping Agency, called it a "clown show", external and the World Anti-Doping Agency described it as a "dangerous and irresponsible project"., external

Speaking in November, Brent J Nowicki, the executive director of World Aquatics, said it was "a farce, and an extremely dangerous one", external, adding that those who took part should be banned from sport for life.

Jane Rumble, chief executive of UK Anti-Doping (Ukad), told BBC Sport: "We are really, really concerned by this concept.

"It flies in the face of everything Ukad stands for and it flies in the face of fair play.

"Any sporting event which permits performance-enhancing drugs is ultimately unsafe - unhealthy for athletes. It is not good for their wellbeing.

"There are also much broader societal implications. It is well documented that steroid use has been linked to domestic violence and aggression in the nighttime economy."

A Ukad survey, external published this week said 85% of UK teenagers ed banning athletes caught taking prohibited drugs.

Rumble said Ukad is unaware of any British athletes being approached by the Enhanced Games, but is planning for the possibility.

"We have clearly thought through that scenario," she said.

"There is the possibility of bans from sport for athletes taking part. If you are recently retired but still d to a sports body, we could well be looking at taking action."

Jim McVeigh, professor of substance use and associated behaviours at Manchester Metropolitan University, said organisers' assurances about athletes' safety were "ignorant or deliberately misleading".

"They are focusing on the power sports - sprinting, lifting and swimming - and, for those events, athletes will take anabolic agents," he told BBC Sport.

"Athletes won't use just in the weeks before. If it is $1m, those people are going to be training now. Are organisers looking out for them? Have they started their supervision?

"In the last 10 years we have really improved our understanding of the long-term effects of steroid abuse as a population of steroid s who started in 1990s have got to a certain age.

"There are the effects on the cardiovascular system, but the big turn-up has been the impact it has on the brain. Many people will never return to normal hormonal production and function.

"We know people in the Enhanced Games are going to be taking high doses because they know everyone else is free to."

Enhanced Games officials say that by bringing the use of performance-enhancing drugs into the open and under the guidance of doctors, their event will be safer than conventional sport.

They point to a study, external of the 2011 World Athletics Championships where athletes' responses to an anonymised survey suggested almost 44% had taken a banned substance in the previous year.

A survey, external of athletes in the UK in 2022 indicated that about 13% of athletes knowingly doped.

Gkolomeev was born in the Bulgarian city of Velingrad in 1993.

His father, Tzvetan Golomeev, represented Bulgaria at the Olympics in Moscow in 1980 and Seoul in 1988.

Gkolomeev's mother died of medical complications shortly after his birth, and the family moved to Greece when he was young.

He began swimming aged five, won junior medals at world and European level and raced at London 2012 as a teenager, finishing 31st fastest in the 100m freestyle.

After the Games, Gkolomeev was recruited to the University of Alabama by former British Olympic coaches Dennis Pursley and Jonty Skinner, where he studied human performance exercise science alongside his swimming.

He won two collegiate titles before beginning his professional career.

In addition to fifth-place finishes at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, he won a world silver medal in the 50m freestyle in Gwangju in 2019 and the European title in Belgrade in 2024.