Enhanced Games

My English translation below of David Dürr, “Enhanced Games – verbesserte Spiele,” eigentümlich frei Nr. 262 (Juli 2026): 73, from my regular column “Bürgerlicher Anarchismus.”

Enhanced Games

David Dürr / May 26, 2026 / DD

There was recently great excitement surrounding a sporting event in Las Vegas called the “Enhanced Games,” featuring elite athletes in track and field, weightlifting, and swimming. In German, “enhanced” translates roughly to elevated, heightened, or improved—and precisely this, improved, is what the athletes’ performances are intended to be at these “Enhanced Games” in Las Vegas.

However, everyone of any standing and renown in the established sports business—international sports federations, Olympic organizations, mainstream sports media—agreed: These Enhanced Games are completely unacceptable! Because at these games—gasp!—doping is not prohibited.

Yet, doesn’t this fact argue not against, but for these games? It makes them more honest than games with a doping ban. There are no athletes who steadfastly lie; no team doctors searching for tricks to evade the detectability of certain substances; no laughable excuses about substance transmission through French kissing; consequently, no monitoring, control, denunciation, and corruption problems; and also no judicial errors in the event that an athlete is unjustly suspended.

Games without a doping ban are also safer: Permitted doping is less harmful than prohibited doping. Banned preparations must be manufactured in secret, without scientific peer review and professional exchange; they are planned and developed not by the best professionals, but by the most ruthless ones. What comes out of this is certainly more dangerous than what is developed in serious and professional laboratories.

Games without a doping ban are also more economical: Permitted doping is subject to constant competition, which tends to reduce prices. This is well known from the drug industry; there, cartels fear nothing more than the legalization of drugs, which would cause their exorbitant prices to plummet dramatically.

Finally, games without a doping ban are morally more legitimate: They proceed from the freedom of the individual human being to take their life, health, and pursuit of happiness into their own hands. Anyone who takes pleasure in competing with others in sports and seeking success not only through training and technique, but also through optimized nutrition and pharmacological support, should not be hindered. Even if it were harmful to them (which is rather unlikely with permitted doping), no one else is responsible for that except themselves alone. To protect individuals from themselves would be an arrogant intrusion into their personal autonomy and thus an unjustified paternalism.

Thus, the Enhanced Games serve as a vivid blueprint for dealing with such paternalism in general—not only regarding traditional sports federations and their heavily regulated games, but also and above all concerning the state with its tight-knit web of prohibitions, regulations, and controls. Anyone who finds these restrictions agreeable should certainly be allowed to participate, just like athletes who voluntarily commit to a doping ban. However, everyone should equally have the freedom to turn instead to enhanced games.