The director general of the International Testing Agency (ITA), the body that oversees anti-doping tests on behalf of the Olympic Games and over 80 international sports federations, has warned that the Enhanced Games could force a major rethink in how organisations such as his confront the fight for clean sport.
On May 24, the inaugural edition of the Enhanced Games — coined the ‘doped Olympics’ as it allows participating athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) under medical supervision – will take place in Las Vegas. Forty-seven athletes will compete in sprinting, short-distance swimming and weightlifting events. Any athlete who breaks an existing world record will receive $1 million in prize funds.
In February 2025, the Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev was awarded $1million by the Enhanced Games after setting a time of 20.89 seconds in the 50m freestyle — breaking the previous benchmark by 0.02 seconds. World Aquatics didn’t recognise Gkolomeev’s time, and this March, Australian swimmer Cameron McEvoy set a new record time of 20.88 — faster than Gkolomeev, who swam using undisclosed prohibited substances.
That has led to discussion in some quarters that if world records are not broken at the Enhanced Games, it could cast doubt and credibility on regular sports competitions.
Speaking at the ITA’s ‘Clean Sport in Action Forum’ in Lausanne, Switzerland, Benjamin Cohen told The Athletic that he hadn’t “heard that position” but he admitted that such an outcome would pose problems for the anti-doping movement.
“I think it’s interesting if the shortcut (belief) is that if there are no world records in the Enhanced Games, that means that (athletes in) World Championships and the regular Olympics are doping as well,” Cohen said.
“We would really need to do an internal review of our processes if the assumption is that anti-doping (bodies) cannot catch the cheats. It’d mean we would have to change our strategies.
“It means either we’re not testing the athletes at the right time, we’re not testing for the right substance, or the labs are not able to detect what the athletes are taking at the moment. So we’d really have to do an introspection of the anti-doping movement and say: are we not efficient as a community?
“We see that we don’t have as many positive (doping cases) as in the past, so it’s a question of whether the efforts are paying off, or if there’s a bigger problem and we’re not able to catch the cheats? Do we need to change when we test and how we test?”
International Testing Agency director general Benjamin Cohen (Mike Lawrie/Getty Images)
In the past decade, the number of worldwide doping cases across all sports has remained relatively consistent, though in 2023 — the last year figures are available for — there were 2,005 cases, the highest figure since the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) began publishing official reports in 2013.
WADA, which has the ultimate authority over all doping matters and whose rules the ITA has to comply with, states that athletes can be tested at any hour of the day, although only in rare and exceptional circumstances is a sportsperson tested between 11pm and 5am.
That has long since posed a concern within the anti-doping community, with several substances having a short detection window of just a few hours, meaning that in theory an athlete could take a prohibited substance at midnight and traces of the drug would not be detectable in a 5am test.
Cohen would be open to the restrictions around nighttime testing loosening. “If you go and speak to the (ITA) testing department, they would say: yes, we need to be able to test whenever we can. Certainly, based on information (the ITA has), it would suggest that there is an issue,” Cohen said.
“I don’t think you would want to do mass testing at the Tour de France, for example, and wake up all the athletes at 3am — that doesn’t make sense. I think you would need to have very concrete suspicions (about an athlete) and use that in a very cautious manner. I wouldn’t advocate for mass night testing, but certainly for some flexibility if you believe that there is an issue.”
Suspicion is never far away in elite sport, especially in endurance athletes, but the anti-doping movement had reason to celebrate at the recent Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina when no athlete returned an adverse analytical finding. It was the first time since the Japan-held Winter Games of 1998 that no competitor tested positive.
The ITA tested 92 per cent of competing athletes prior to the Games at least once, and during the two weeks of events, it carried out 3,053 in- and out-of-competition tests on 1,848 athletes — 63.4 per cent of all participants.
Cohen, however, refused to be too joyous about the news, noting that all urine and blood samples will be stored away and re-analysed once or at most twice in the ensuing 10 years, when advancements in science should be able to detect prohibited substances that current labs are unable to.
“History has shown us that we have to be cautious when we report on results at the Olympics,” the Swiss said. “The ITA started the reanalysis of the London 2012 samples, and we saw almost 50 medals reallocated and more than 70 samples that had initially been declared negative, declared positive.
“At the moment, all the samples (from Milano Cortina) are declared negative, but we need to be cautious and wait a little bit. I don’t want to say it’s a major success and that the Games were definitely clean, because unfortunately, we’re going to have to wait 10 years to see if science can detect things that we were not yet able to.”
Russian hammer thrower Tatyana Lysenko has been stripped of her 2012 Olympic title after a positive doping re-test in 2016 (Adrian Dennis/AFP/GettyImages)
Beyond various World Championships and cycling’s Tour de France, the ITA’s next major event is the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. By the time the world’s best athletes are competing in California, the host city of the 2036 Olympics will also be known. Doha in Qatar and Ahmedabad in India are the two leading favourites.
Though there is strong support for India, there is also alarm at the country’s anti-doping record, with the nation reporting the highest number of positive doping tests for the last three years. It has also been widely reported that it’s the world’s leading manufacturer of PEDs.
“We’re concerned in general with the state of doping in India and we’re hearing a lot of things happening on the ground,” Cohen said. “We also hear stories of athletes running away when there is a doping control, and we hear of advance notice (given to athletes prior to testing).”
Cohen revealed that he met with the Indian National Anti-Doping Agency and Indian Olympic Committee at the recent Winter Olympics, and he was warmed by their apparent willingness to “team up with the ITA”. But, he admitted, getting India on side is no easy task.
“I’m going to be frank: there is still some resistance to engage with the ITA, as there can be a perception in India that this is almost an admission of failure of the system, or that they’re not going to be seen as competent enough to deal with their own problems, so they have to join forces with an independent international organisation.
“There’s a bit of scepticism as to how it’s going to be perceived in the Indian community.”
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has, Cohen said, addressed the issue of doping with the Indians, “passing on the message that if they want to be hosting the Games, they need to do some reforms. There are a lot of governance and structural reforms that should happen for anti-doping to be highly efficient in India.
“But I think they’re on the right track in that it is now known that the Indian Olympic Committee and the Ministry of Sports want to do something: they want to invest. They have the resources, so I think it’s just a matter of time.”
The Athletic reached out to the Indian National Anti-Doping Agency for comment.
