German billionaire Angermayer backs tournament that allows doping

The multi-sport event kicked off on Sunday in Las Vegas and openly encourages participating athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs strictly banned in the traditional Olympics and other mainstream competitions.

According to data published by the Enhanced Games, nearly all of the athletes participating in the inaugural weekend’s event utilized enhancement drugs. Approximately 91% used testosterone, 79% utilized human growth hormone (HGH), and 29% administered anabolic steroids.

Many athletes told AFP they experienced unprecedented physical improvements and enhanced recovery times while training for four months in Abu Dhabi prior to the event.

Angermayer, whose net worth is estimated at US$1.2 billion with fortune amassed through early investments in cryptocurrency, biotechnology, and the psychedelic pharmaceutical industry, believes this tournament represents the future.

Ultimately, the billionaire wants to fundamentally change how society views performance-enhancing and anti-aging drugs.

“I don’t understand why people limit medicine only for treating an illness,” Angermayer told The Guardian. “Should we, as a society, think about how not to get sick in the first place? Why not use medically approved drugs, with a doctor, to help you to achieve your goal?”

On the Enhanced Games website, users can purchase prescription treatments, including a testosterone cream for $209 to maintain youthfulness, or GHK-Cu copper peptides for $119, marketed to increase collagen and skin elasticity.

Some of Angermayer’s arguments have gained traction. He often cites the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs as proof that medical technologies initially considered “outsiders” eventually become mainstream.

However, anti-doping officials strongly argue that Angermayer is downplaying the risks. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has condemned the Enhanced Games as a “dangerous and irresponsible concept,” while Travis Tygart, CEO of the US Anti-Doping Agency, dismissed the event as a “clown show.”

The German billionaire, founder of the investment firm Apeiron and the biopharmaceutical company atai Life Sciences, asserted that performance-enhancing substances are completely safe when administered under proper medical supervision.

A perspective view of the Enhanced Games arena in Las Vegas. Photo by Enhanced Games

When questioned about the mysterious, high-profile deaths in professional cycling during the 1990s, widely suspected to be linked to EPO abuse, or the state-sponsored doping scandals in East Germany during the Cold War, Angermayer dismissed the comparisons. He argued that those cases involved a lack of transparent oversight and the dangerous use of unapproved drugs.

His core argument is simple: any substance approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for human use should be legally permitted in elite sports, provided there is strict medical supervision.

However, WADA warns that many of these drugs, such as anabolic steroids or EPO, are only safe under very specific medical treatment conditions for actual illnesses. Their use outside of these purposes can cause severe, long-term damage to the cardiovascular system, internal organs, and metabolic functions.

The billionaire also openly admitted to undergoing testosterone therapy since he was 30 years old, currently injecting 250 mg weekly. Recently, he also began using tesamorelin, a peptide that stimulates the natural production of growth hormones.

This stance continues to challenge the views of WADA, which maintains that the unsupervised abuse of growth hormones can lead to diabetes, heart disease and abnormal organ enlargement.

Angermayer remains convinced he is on the right side of history.

He asserted that the Enhanced Games will not simply disappear after a few years. Instead, he plans for massive future expansion, possibly even inviting retired, older sports stars back to the track to compete with the aid of performance enhancers.