Most of the athletes who said yes to the Enhanced Games were referred by other athletes who had already said yes.

This is one of the things Rick Adams tells you that almost no one in the wider coverage of the games has bothered to mention. More than half of the 40-plus athletes preparing to compete in Las Vegas on May 24th 2026 came in through the people who joined before them. They asked their friends. Their agents called other agents. Their coaches spoke to other coaches. By the time Adams was having his second wave of conversations, he was no longer cold-recruiting. He was managing a network of athletes already curious about what he was building, vetting it among themselves, watching how the early signatories were treated.

He is also, he tells you, sitting on a phone full of names of current elite athletes who didn’t sign for the inaugural games but expect to have conversations again in the coming months. He won’t tell you who they are. He has never disclosed an athlete who declined and never will. That confidentiality, he says, is one of the basic tenets of how this is being run, and one he has told the founders cannot be violated a single time.

You can look to your left and your right and you know who’s enhanced and you know who’s not. And I think fans have been longing for that. They want the purity of it. They want the authenticity of it.

What’s striking, talking to him, is how little of the conversation is about the substances. He is much more interested in the question of how athletes get from “I haven’t heard of this” to “I’m in”, and how he set up the recruitment process so that the answer in either direction was always defensible, both for them and for him. Some athletes took a long time to sign. One in particular kept saying yes and Adams kept saying not yet. He wasn’t convinced the athlete had really thought it through. They eventually signed. They are now in Abu Dhabi doing terrific things, in Adams’s words. But the conversation, he says, was always about whether this was right for them personally and professionally first. The money came second.

What is also under-reported is something Adams sees as one of the most journalistically significant features of the games: the field is blended. There are non-enhanced athletes competing alongside enhanced ones. At the start line in Las Vegas, you will be able to look to your left and your right and know who is on a protocol and who isn’t. Adams thinks fans have been quietly longing for exactly this; a return to a kind of competitive transparency that elite sport, in his telling, hasn’t really offered for decades.

In the second part of our conversation with Adams, recorded from his office in the run-up to the games, he describes what the athletes are going through, what kept the ones who declined from joining, and why he believes the recent shift in narrative around the games, the appearance of non-enhanced sprinters and swimmers in the field, has changed what’s possible from here.

Read Part 1 of the conversation here, where Adams discusses world records, his personal reasons for joining the games, and why he thinks every measurable record in objective sport will eventually belong to an enhanced athlete. The inaugural Enhanced Games take place at Resorts World Las Vegas over Memorial Day weekend, May 21–24, 2026.

How are the athletes feeling right now and what are they going through that’s unique?

I think on balance the athletes are feeling really good. We have a significant and comprehensive program in place that involves a full-time medical doctor on site.

We have an independent medical commission. We have calls daily by athlete on all aspects of their nutrition, their sleep, their biometrics. It is truly a committee of experts that are analysing everything about the athletes.

What’s unique is that these athletes are for the first time having to balance workload and recovery based on this blended question of where is their body at relative to their enhancement protocol and the training.

We obviously need to periodise the training for an outcome on May 24th. So if you’re a weightlifter, for example, and you were on an enhancement protocol for the first time, we have to carefully monitor your work to make sure to avoid injury, to avoid stress.

This is one of the great differentiators of why the product line that will be coming out of Enhanced will be globally trusted, because this for the first time will be done as the result of an actual trial and actual medical rigour and real data. That has not happened before.

So I think the athletes are feeling good and I think their unique challenges are known to us and we’re addressing them in real time.

All athletes are under pressure ahead of competition. What’s different about this for them?

There’ll be a number of things that are different, but the primary thing I believe is that the intrigue and the unknown about what will performance look like will be incredibly intense.

What are the expectations in the minds of some who don’t necessarily understand that enhancements are a critical element of a very comprehensive process?

In the absence of the coaching and the training and the nutrition and the psychology and the PT [the physical therapy team], the results do not just arrive. In the minds of some, they believe that the enhancements essentially remove the need for all of these other critical components of high performance. That is absolutely untrue.

The enhancement will refine. The margins of victory and defeat, as you know, in sports are into the hundredths of seconds.

What I think will be a unique challenge is there will likely be expectations in the minds of some that they’ll see things that they’re not going to see. Because again, the rigour we’ve applied, the protocols they’re under are all done within the health and safety ranges. But for an individual athlete, their expectations are going to be high.

Do you feel like some people in the media are hoping you fail or things go wrong? And if so, do you try to shield the athletes from that in any way?

We definitely do not shield the athletes.

We have a group that has been authentic about their own journey, which I’ve been incredibly impressed by. All of you that have had an opportunity to speak with them see that come through.

I have certainly emphasised that there are certain audiences and institutions that are unlikely to ever see us for what we are. It’s not in their interest to do that. But we’re not focused on it.

I’m of the opinion that as people begin to see that we’re answering a different question. The Olympic Games, which I again hold dear to my heart, answer the question under that set of rules, what is the fastest someone can swim or run or lift under that set of rules. Those rules are determined by [WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency] and others, and those rules need to be followed and adhered to and respected.

We’re answering a different question. We’re answering the question under a different set of rules: how fast can the human body go? How fast can a swimmer cover 50 meters, not under the rules as set forth and promulgated by the IOC or WADA, but under our rules. And that’s a different question.

At some point, that bifurcated model, I think, will become clearer to people who have an open mind. To those that don’t, of course, it never will.

I frequently speak of Nike’s occasional experiment. When they had the sub two hour marathon experiment, that’s not recognised by the IAAF. It’s not known within the marathon world as the record. They were answering the following question: can the human body cover 26.2 miles in under two hours?

They did lots of things to make that possible, lots of things that are not allowed under the rules. We’re doing the same thing. Nike’s lauded for their sub two hour marathon and we’re less lauded for our pursuit, I’ll just say.

What word would you use to describe the decision of the first few athletes who came forward?

I would consider it a brave decision, but I think you have to provide context to that.

The first decision they made, which was the most important one, was to understand what it is. So the willingness to have a thoughtful conversation about what we’re doing, and more important, the bulk of the conversations that I had with athletes, and I’ve spoken to innumerable athletes, many of whom ultimately did not decide to join, many of whom I think have a keen interest in joining in time, all of that was done confidentially.

I’ve never spoken once and never will about any athlete, but I’ve spoken to many, many current elite athletes about the Enhanced Games. It’s wholly educational. It’s learning. Once they learn, then the decision can be made.

What I’m proud of is that of our 40 plus athletes, more than half of them are referrals from other athletes. Once athletes joined, they went through the medical health assessment, they got into the program, they realised what the services are, they spoke to their friends and agents spoke to other agents and coaches spoke to other coaches.

We have the early stages of a network of people across all the sports who are very interested in the Enhanced Games.

After May 24th, you will see a significant uptick in interest in swimming.

I want to emphasise something that I do believe has been lightly reported, but it’s a blended field. We have non-enhanced athletes.

One of the great intriguing factors for the first time in modern sport will be at the start line, you can look to your left and your right and you know who’s enhanced and you know who’s not.

I think fans have been longing for that. They want the purity of it. They want the authenticity of it.

If you look at what happened in cycling, the part of cycling that really, I believe at least, hurt the sport broadly was the notion that there are a few select riders that are enhanced and they’re winning all the time. But if the entire peloton’s enhanced, people were far less worried about it, because they considered that then a level playing field.

If you read the wording within IOC vernacular and everywhere else, the goal is a level playing field. Do the competitors know the rules? Have they all followed them? And is it level?

In our case, those metrics are all hit.

So from an athlete perspective, steeped in education, including what we’re not, we have enormous interest in the Enhanced Games.

We strategically kept the field where it is so that we could run the event in the manner that we said we would. There are a graveyard of sporting events that have not succeeded for a variety of reasons, and the important thing for us was to be scaled properly, which we are.

What was the most common fear or concern from athletes you had to address?

The most common fear really involved what impact, if any, would it have on their post-current competitive life.

By that I mean, would there be limitations around coaching? Would there be limitations around public speaking? Would it eliminate their opportunity to start a swim camp in their hometown? Would parents draw an affiliation that they have competed in the Enhanced Games and not want their son or daughter to be at that academy, for example?

So it really was far less about intra-athlete concerns because within the athlete communities, I think it’s actually quite well known what the landscape is, and within the athlete community I think there’s a degree of understanding.

It really involved externally what limitations might this bring to them in the future.

That was a moment in time. And I believe even in the last six months, the narrative has changed pretty dramatically. We now have non-enhanced sprinters. We have non-enhanced swimmers.

I think many of those athletes will look to this. But I would say that was the main fear.

You must have some interesting stories about ones that got away that were pretty close, but didn’t quite get in this year.

I would say that I certainly again spoke to a number of current elite athletes. And I’m very proud of the decision that they made because the entire conversation was about this has to be right for you personally and professionally.

I said that to every athlete. I encouraged every athlete, even those we signed, I said, speak to everyone in your network that you think you should. Talk to your family, talk to your coaches, talk to the people you love and that love you back, and really think about what this means.

In some cases, those athletes came back and said, thank you.

Because what I said to them about the money is the following. I said, money is earned, taxed, and spent. But what you have left is how you lived your life. And I want you to be proud of how you lived your life. So don’t come for the money.

That kind of dialogue, I think, allowed us to have the field we have. And I think it has also allowed us to have a lot of athletes who respect the way we handled the situation. They were never compromised. They were never disclosed.

They now can speak to our 40-plus athletes about, do these guys do what they say?

I think that bodes well for future participation.

Were there many who said, look, I want to see how it goes but count me in for next year?

There certainly was some of that. There are a number of athletes who are in my phone there that I would expect to have conversations with in the coming weeks and months. But again, only under the circumstances that it’s best for them personally and professionally.

We are not going to deviate from that.

I had a particular athlete that took a long time to sign and the athlete was wanting to sign. And I wasn’t fully convinced that they had really thought it through.

I just said, let’s make sure. Let’s take a little time. We ultimately did sign and that athlete is excited to be here and doing terrific things.

We know that the athletes speak among themselves. In the end, that’s what will make the difference.

From Max, [Maximilian Martin, the Enhanced Games CEO] to our founders, I’ve said to them from the beginning, there are some basic tenets that we cannot violate a single time, not once. If we do, the trust will be broken. You will never regain it. And it will be really difficult.

I’m proud that we have adhered to that.

Photography Getty