For the last decade Olympic swimmer Cody Miller has been fanatical about keeping his body clean. And nothing was left to chance.
Routine cough and cold remedies were analyzed with the help of an official website. Dishes were documented: in Mexico, avoid the meat, because it could inadvertently contain growth hormones.
Every hour of the day was logged in advance with the anti-doping authorities, who would regularly swoop in unannounced and demand a blood or urine test. It was a monastic, messianic existence. But in mid-March that dramatically changed.
The month before, Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev had broken the 50m freestyle world record – thanks to drugs. According to Miller, a gold medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics as part of the Michael Phelps-led relay team and winner of a bronze individually, the development ‘set the sports world on fire.’
Intrigued, he did what would once have been unthinkable: He contacted Gkolomeev’s coach and, a few months later, he signed up for the ‘protocol.’
‘It’s always been this super forbidden, taboo thing,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘But now we’re just openly doing it.’
Olympic swimmer Cody Miller speaks to media at the 2016 Games. Now, he is taking performance enhancing drugs to compete in a new version of his sport
Miller and fellow swimmer Ben Proud pose by the pool as they will be two of 50 athletes competing in the Enhanced Games come Sunday
So, how did it feel to cross the Rubicon?
‘When I first had my first injection, I wasn’t nervous, but it was like: OK, we’re doing this,’ he said, admitting that it felt ‘weird.’ ‘And then it just became like taking a multivitamin.’
It might seem surprising that a competitive athlete is speaking so frankly about breaking what is, for most, the cardinal rule of professional athletics. But the truth is, he’s far from alone in taking this giant leap.
This weekend Miller, 34, will join 50 fellow athletes – swimmers, sprinters and weightlifters – for the inaugural Enhanced Games, staged in a custom-built Las Vegas stadium.
Backed by investors such as Donald Trump Jr, Peter Thiel and Saudi royals, the games give athletes the chance, promoters say, to push the boundaries of human potential – with the help of steroids, testosterone and growth hormones.
Organizers do not shy away from spectacle. The Killers will perform, longevity guinea pig Bryan Johnson will provide online commentary, and a crowd of influencers and investors will gather inside the modern-day Colosseum to cheer the circus.
To its critics – and there are many – it’s nothing short of a grotesque carnival, undermining legitimate human endeavor.
Cameron McEvoy, the Australian swimmer who has represented his country at the last four Olympics and is the current 50m freestyle world record holder, called the games ‘ludicrous,’ while Travis Tygart, CEO of the US Anti-Doping Agency, described it as a ‘dangerous clown show.’
Sebastian Coe, the British middle-distance runner who won gold in the 1980 and ’84 Olympics before becoming a high-profile member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said it was ‘moronic,’ and legendary American sprinter Carl Lewis, winner of nine Olympic gold medals, said the participants were ‘only signing up for fame.’
But Maximilian Martin, the CEO of the games, has insisted that this is no freak show. No one will ‘explode’ or have ‘a heart attack while competing,’ he promised.
For his part, Christian Angermayer, co-founder and executive chairman of the games, told the Daily Mail, ‘We are the transparent ones, we’re the fair ones, and we are the ones who pay the athletes well, which I think is morally the right thing to do. The IOC is holding their billions and not giving anything back to the athletes.’
Since January, the athletes have been training under medical supervision in the United Arab Emirates as part of a clinical trial.
Dr Guido Pieles, a sports cardiologist based in the UAE, leads a team of scientists and doctors assessing the athletes and devising personalized plans. Organizers claim that the resulting research will have lasting scientific benefits.
And while the athletes are monitored and analyzed, it’s for others to ponder the question the spectacle raises: When it comes to competing, what counts?
World records may be broken on Sunday – they will not make it into the history books, but anyone who achieves one will receive $1 million, and anyone who wins a race will get $250,000.
There are additional appearance fees, and a base salary in the mid to high six figures.
A rendering of the Enhanced Games shows what the arena will look like during the competition
Miller (center left) was a gold medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics as part of the Michael Phelps-led relay team. He also won a bronze medal individually
Miller, in an Enhanced uniform, has joined the competition where anyone who wins a race will get $250,000
For a swimmer struggling to survive on around $36,000 a year, the payout is enticing.
‘Everyone understands the financial argument. Everyone,’ Miller said. ‘Even people that are not fully on board with this – my peers, my Olympic friends, national teammates – everybody gets it. They all get it.’
Fellow swimmer Hunter Armstrong certainly does. For the athlete who was holding down four part-time jobs before he signed with Enhanced, the guaranteed salary was too good an offer to turn down.
Yet, in a decision that many might consider rather perverse, Armstrong is going to compete – he’s just not going to take any performance-enhancing drugs.
Ironically, despite his boundaries, there have still been consequences. World Aquatics, swimming’s governing body, has said anyone involved in Enhanced – even competing clean – is automatically barred.
It makes Armstrong’s decision all the more baffling given that, at just 25, he is one of the few Enhanced athletes to be at his sporting peak. For male swimmers, the window is considered to be from 24 to 27 years old, he said, while for women it’s 18 to 22.
Thirty-five-year-old Megan Romano, for example, a four-time world champion, said she is taking the drugs to see if she can beat her 20-year-old self.
Armstrong has no such need. He won gold at both the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 games, and, as one of the fastest back strokers in the world (he lost his world record in 2023 but is adamant he’ll regain it), he hopes to make the Los Angeles 2028 team.
Armstrong’s notion is that he’ll be such a strong contender, organizers will have to rethink their blanket ban on anyone taking part in the Enhanced Games and admit him to Team USA regardless.
He’s still on the anti-doping register – officials showed up on his doorstep, unannounced as ever, to collect a urine sample two hours before his conversation with the Daily Mail, and then 32 hours before that.
‘I will say that since signing up with Enhanced, I’ve had a lot more blood tests as well,’ he said.
There have been practical problems, too.
The Ohio State University, his alma mater, told him he could no longer use their facilities, forcing him to train instead at the local YMCA. He admitted it has been tough, explaining that the pool does not have starting blocks, and he must schedule his sessions around pensioners’ aqua aerobics.
People have unfollowed him on social media and savaged him online. Particularly painful was the canceling of his work coaching children.
Megan Romano, 35, during a 2013 training session in Spain. She is a four-time world champion swimmer, said she is taking the drugs to see if she can beat her 20-year-old self
Hunter Armstrong holds up his two medals from the 2024 Games in Paris. He was also holding down four part-time jobs before he signed with Enhanced, joining the competition because of the salary it promised
Armstrong at a warmup before the 100m backstroke final at the 2024 US Olympic Team trials. He has said he will not take any performance-enhancing drugs
Armstrong (center) and his teammates celebrate winning gold in the Men’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay Final in 2024
‘One of my passions is working with kids,’ said Armstrong, who hopes to become a teacher on retiring. ‘And I’ve had multiple clinics cancel. There was one that I was supposed to do this past weekend and then, maybe a week before I was supposed to leave [for the clinic], I guess the parents had protested and so they had to cancel me because they had no registrations.
‘That part hurts. Not just because I love to do it, but it feels more of an attack on my character.
‘I don’t support cheating, and I’m not going to your clinic to tell your eight-year-olds, “Hey, go take steroids.” Everything that I’ve done in my sport has been clean and will continue to be clean.’
Miller, on the other hand, is quite enjoying his doping detour.
Once a day he injects himself in the stomach with growth hormone, and twice a week he injects testosterone into his glutes. He also takes an anabolic steroid and has to be careful not to lift too many weights, or he will get too muscly to be an efficient swimmer.
‘I certainly recover better, and I feel stronger,’ he said. ‘In the weight room, it’s just easier to throw around weights that used to be hard – they’re not very hard anymore.’
The components he takes are all legal and FDA-approved, just not permitted for competition. He told the Daily Mail he has suffered few side effects beyond a little ‘puffiness’ in the muscles and water retention, which he likens to the aftereffects of taking a long-haul flight.
Recently retired – he competed in the 2024 US team trials ‘for fun,’ but now finds much of his time taken up by his two young children, aged four and five – Miller said he now feels so good he has to restrain himself from over-training.
He’ll quit the drug regime after the games, he said, but fully expects to take them up again as he ages, insisting that testosterone and drugs such as peptides are useful tools.
Enhanced is banking on people following his lead. Aron D’Souza, the Australian entrepreneur who dreamt up the games, now openly admits that the aim is to become like Red Bull, with athletes promoting the product with their wild stunts. The company went public in May, listing on the New York Stock Exchange with a $1.2 billion valuation.
But isn’t Miller worried about the example he is setting for his children? How will he explain to them that their daddy’s doing drugs?
Aron D’Souza is the Australian entrepreneur who dreamt up the Enhanced Games, which he wants to become similar to Red Bull
Maximilian Martin, the CEO of the Enhanced Games, at the New York Stock Exchange
A rendering of the Enhanced Games venue in Las Vegas
‘That was probably the most common concern and question I got from people, and that’s the thing that I talk to my family about the most,’ he said. ‘I’m a coach. I’ve coached lots of kids, done tons of events with young athletes, so I understand that.
‘But the way that I think about it is that hormone optimization and enhancements and these types of things are just the future. It’s like, AI is here, the world is changing, it’s not going away.
‘And when it comes to the traditional world of sport versus what I’m doing now, I view them as two different sandboxes.
‘I swam competitively, professionally for over ten years. I followed all the rules, I got all the drug tests, I did everything right and I had a lot of success and that was great.
‘That part of my career slash life is over, the book has been closed and now I’m doing something different with a different set of rules. Can these things be dangerous and risky? Yes. Anyone that denies that is being dishonest.
‘But they absolutely can be done safely, and I think, as athletes, we take risks. Football players take risks when they play the game. Rock climbers take risks when they climb the mountain. Any time a Formula One driver gets in the car and races, does that set a good example for the 16-year-old boys that are watching these guys drive at 200 miles an hour?
‘You have to talk to young athletes, teenagers, and treat them like adults and be honest with them.
‘I’ve had more medical assessments and testings and screenings in the last number of months than I’ve ever had in my entire life. I’ve got so much information on how my heart functions and how my blood flows now, which is really cool.’
For Miller, and for many like him, ‘transparency’ is the most important thing. This isn’t cheating, he insisted, but rather competing on different terms. ‘It’s a conversation to be had, right?’
Additional reporting by James Cohen
