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The 2026 Enhanced Games, which will allow athletes to compete using performance-enhancing drugs, suffered a serious legal setback this week. A federal judge in New York dismissed its $800 million antitrust lawsuit against the World Anti-Doping Agency, World Aquatics, and USA Swimming.
The Enhanced Games was suing the organizations for at least $200 million in actual damages, “increasing to at least $800 million after statutory trebling, punitive damages awards, and the recovery of attorneys’ fees.” The basis of the lawsuit was that the organizations told athletes they were not allowed to compete in the new event.
According to SwimSwam, the Enhanced Games claimed World Aquatics utilizes an anticompetitive rule, bylaw 10, which allows it to stop its members from participating in unauthorized competitions. The judge disagreed.
Specifically, bylaw 10 bans athletes who “support, endorse, or participate in sporting events that embrace the use of scientific advancements or other practices that may include prohibited substances and/or prohibited methods.”
Enhanced Games founder, Australian businessman Aron D’Souz, stated earlier this year, “We believe that individuals are best placed to make decisions about their own bodies, in consultation with their doctors. Therefore, we would welcome all performance therapies that are done under medical supervision.”
“Enhanced fails to allege that bylaw 10, contrary to its plain language, automatically applies to every elite, international swimming competition,” U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman wrote in a 33-page order, granting the organizations’ motion to dismiss. “Instead, the only events bylaw 10 conditions access to are those elite, international swimming competitions hosted by World Aquatics, which Enhanced itself concedes do not constitute the entirety of the market.”
WADA welcomes the decision by a federal court in the United States to dismiss an antitrust claim against the Agency, World Aquatics and USA Swimming brought by the organizers of the Enhanced Games.
WADA is pleased that common sense has prevailed and remains focused on its core…
— WADA (@wada_ama) November 18, 2025
Very few athletes have actually committed to the Enhanced Games
“We have received the judge’s order and, while disappointed with the ruling, will take the next thirty days to consider our response,” Enhanced Games spokesperson Chris Jones said in a statement to Front Office Sports. “Enhanced remains committed to providing athletes the choice to participate in the Enhanced Games to advance scientific discovery and explore the limits of human performance, while offering athletes financial opportunities they would otherwise not have access to.”
American Olympic sprinter Fred Kerley, Australian Olympic swimmer James Magnussen, and British Olympic swimmer Ben Proud have all announced they will be competing in the Enhanced Games.
So far, according to the Enhanced Games website, only nine other athletes have committed to participating. Eight are listed as competing in “aquatics,” two in “athletics,” and two in weightlifting. The event is still currently scheduled to take place in Las Vegas on May 24, 2026.