#20: Why the Steroid Olympics Flopped and the Truth About Peptides | Chris Gayomali & Sam Eagan

What if you juiced a roster of athletes to the gills with performance-enhancing drugs and let them compete for a million-dollar prize? That's the Enhanced Games — the billionaire-backed "Steroid Olympics" held in Las Vegas — and the results were not what investors expected. Michael Easter sits down with journalists Chris Gayomali and Sam Eagan, hosts of the Superhuman podcast, who were embedded with the founders, athletes, and scientists during the games. Despite being hyped as the future of human performance, almost no world records actually fell. In many cases, non-enhanced athletes beat the juiced ones. Within about a day, it became clear the event was really a marketing engine for selling testosterone and peptides to the public, and a glimpse of how we're increasingly being sold a frictionless, "enhanced" version of ourselves, all with the swipe of a credit card. Two Percent is hosted by Michael Easter. Today’s episode was produced by Joey Fischground, Robbie Hiser, Dana Brawer and Julia Nutter. From Kaleidoscope, our executive producers are Mangesh Hattikudur and Kate Osborn and Julia Nutter. From iHeart, our executive producers are Katrina Norvell and Nikki Ettore. Our Head of Video is Maria Paz Mendez Hodes. This episode was edited by Joey Fischground. Our theme music is by the Heater Manager. GET A FREE GUIDE TO EXAMPLES OF MISOGI. GO TO https://www.twopct.com AND ENTER YOUR EMAIL. I share similar insights around health and wellness here:https://substack.com/@michaeleasterhttps://instagram.com/michael_easter/https://linkedin.com/in/michael-easter-b208848/https://facebook.com/easter.michaelhttps://tiktok.com/@michael_easter6https://x.com/Michael_Easter Chapters:00:00:00 - Intro 00:04:29 - What the Enhanced Games actually are (the "steroid Olympics") 00:07:00 - "It took me a full day to realize this is an ad" 00:08:00 - The real business model: Hims with a WWE marketing layer 00:13:13 - Peter Thiel, transhumanism, and how it started 00:16:17 - The "44% of Olympians dope" stat — and the cherry-pick 00:18:28 - Doped so much he got slower in the water 00:21:04 - Inside the "wellness Coachella" in the desert 00:23:48 - The money: $250K to win, $1M for a world record 00:28:03 - The event: almost no records, and the clean athletes won 00:31:16 - The banned super suit and the Barry Bonds problem 00:36:04 - The IOC's own-goal: "I don't believe in paying athletes" 00:38:07 - The stock crashes 75% — and the spin that followed 00:40:08 - What they actually sell you (peptides, testosterone, NAD+) 00:41:49 - Why the "study" proves almost nothing 00:51:00 - Is removing life's friction making us weaker? 01:00:06 - "$250 shoes are the testosterone for your feet"