Kristian Gkolomeev won the 50m freestyle at the Enhanced Games in Las Vegas on May 25, finishing in 20.81 seconds, a time faster than Cam McEvoy’s world record set in March. The swim carried no official record status because it was done with banned substances in his system and in a suit that gave him a significant advantage.
The victory brought Gkolomeev a $US250,000 prize, and he is due a $US1 million bonus for beating McEvoy’s mark, taking his haul to $1.75 million. “Another million, I’m going to say it’s not bad at all,” he said, adding, “This is going to change my life to the good for sure, it’s a big help for me and my family and yeah, I’m going to continue.”
The result gave the event its clearest selling point so far: a swimmer producing a time that would have rewritten the record books in any traditional meet, while the format itself ensures it will never count there. The Enhanced Games staged the races in Las Vegas, where the 100m sprint final later drew 53,506 viewers on a YouTube stream.
James Magnussen, who had been taking performance-enhancing drugs under medical supervision to compete, finished fourth in the 50m freestyle in 22.35 and later placed last again in the 100m freestyle in 49.44 seconds. His 100m time was 2.34 seconds outside the personal best he set in 2012, underlining how far the event still sits from conventional elite standards even as it hands out record-sized payouts.
Fred Kerley won that 100m sprint final in 9.97 seconds without performance-enhancing drugs, but he did not threaten either the world record or his own personal best of 9.76 seconds. The 2022 world 100m champion and two-time Olympic medallist later complained about the chaotic atmosphere, saying there were too many false starts and that competitors needed to train harder and “go a little harder some more.”
For Gkolomeev, though, the central fact is simple: he was the fastest swimmer in the pool and left Las Vegas with both the money and the headline. What cannot be separated from that result is the reason it will never sit beside the sport’s official records, and that tension is exactly what the Enhanced Games is selling.
