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Richard Wittman, 69, is not just any weightlifter. He is the keeper of the flame of integrity in the sport. He has some pointed things to say about last weekend's Enhanced Games and its threats to the "soul" of athletes. What went on in Vegas impacts Geezer Jocks of all skill levels.
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By Ray Glier
The abomination called The Enhanced Games was held last weekend in Las Vegas. It is a scheme by wealthy men to sell worldwide their so-called anti-aging formulas and metaphysics. Athletes in track, swimming, and weightlifting, were flown to Dubai and some were given performance enhancing drugs and “high-tech” training for months. Then they were brought to Vegas for a chance at $1 million for breaking a world record.
It is even more wretched than that. The wealthy men behind the Enhanced Games believe aging is a disease. One of the moguls behind the venture, Peter Thiel, seems to believe only the elite should govern the U.S., not the pedestrian with dirt under their fingernails.
I could give you scientific data about genes and thousands of years of historical evolution work to debunk these men, but I found the perfect Geezer Jock to stand on the tracks and challenge this bogeyman.
Richard Wittman, 69, who has set seven world records in weightlifting, is distressed by the whole enterprise. Richard is nobody’s nanny. He believes a person has a right to do what they wish with their body.
But…
…Wittman recognizes The Enhanced Games for what it is: a soul-crushing endeavor.
“It's a question of care for my soul,” Richard said. “It's going back to Socrates, who spoke on the health of the soul. If the soul is eternal, then we are wise to take care of it. The health of the soul is based upon virtue.”
And then Wittman said this about the entrepreneurs’ view that aging is a disease:
“I believe in aging with grace, but we live in a world that seems to regard aging as a disgrace.”
Look at the pictures. The man is a 69-year old bad ass. Wittman worked hard in our 30-minute talk not to condemn the oligarchs behind the Enhanced Games. He just wanted to make the point they are flat-out wrong.
“This is an ethical question for me and it's about putting at risk your well-being,” he said. “To me, taking drugs is about bypassing work and effort and is egotistical or cowardly, one of the two. It's not based on work, or effort, it's based on the need for ego satisfaction, ego gratification in the short term.
“Bypassing the effort that is required risks your own body's health and your ethical principle.”
Wittman ran Masters track in 2022 and won the 50-meter dash and 100-meter dash at the Georgia Golden Olympics. He took silver in the 200 and 400 (M65-69).
Then, at 66, he got into competitive weightlifting. A fitness and life coach in Newnan, Ga., Richard steadfastly denies performance enhancing drugs had anything to do with his success, which includes a lift of 475 pounds at 68 years old.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, right, but doing performance-enhancing drugs for the sake of my health and well-being has never been one of them,” Wittman said. “I'm a lifetime natural. I've never messed with it. Never.”
Richard has seen the PEDs at work. It’s “rampant” in the gyms today among youth, he said. Like the gambling craze sweeping the country it is not innocent, or to be ignored.
“I could see the temptation for somebody, the risk rewards for making a bunch of money and taking care of family,” Wittman said. “But the effects of steroid use is obvious. These guys are enlarging their hearts and dying at an early age. The effects are horrific.
“It clearly does work in bodybuilding. The effects are real, but these guys are nothing but somebody’s laboratory experiment.”
The lab rats in Vegas were a bust. One world record was broken, a swimmer in the 50-meter freestyle. The man challenging Usain Bolt’s world mark of 9.58 seconds in the 100 meters ran 9.97 seconds. That would have placed him 6th at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
More gratifying to me is what happened Monday morning. Investors spoke. The Enhanced Games stock crashed and lost 80 percent of its value. It’s market capitalization had been $350 million. Oops.
Richard takes no glee in this.
He is simply a “philosopher of fitness” who wonders where this longevity irrationality is taking us.
“As we age, we can develop our strength of character through the humility of the process; we can actually grow our character strength within our soul,” Wittman said. “Health care is self-care. I see it from a holistic perspective. If we are eternal—I don't take a chance that I'm not—I will take care of my soul. I believe that this is a way of honoring who I truly am.”
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John Haines
June 23, 2026
A couple additional thoughts about some of the posts, starting with thanking everyone who’s weighed in. What one commenter wrote about the World Health Organization’s position isn’t correct or at least it’s inexact: during the development of ICD-11, a proposal to include “old age” as a diagnostic category was withdrawn and replaced by “aging-related conditions” and “decline in intrinsic capacity” (Code MG2A) which was intended to capture age-related functional changes. My second thought goes to what one commenter wrote about Fred Kerley, who specifically did not “enhance” so I don’t understand the remark that he wouldn’t have “passed a WADA test” and suggest that’s at the least unfair. On Enhanced’s business model, Games participants may only “enhance” using FDA-approved substances (so no peptides, at least for now) under physician supervision in Enhanced’s registered clinical trial. Reasonable people can still felt what they’re doing, but it’s not the free for all that’s often implied.