Enhanced Games, a sports competition where performance-enhancing drugs are not only allowed but encouraged, will be held for the first time in May next year, in Las Vegas.

Ever wondered how much better top human athletes could be if they were allowed to use performance-enhancing substances in competitions? Well, in May of next year, these questions will be answered, as the first edition of Enhanced Games kicks off. Marketed as an event designed to remove the stigma of using PEDs and to safely push the limits of human athletic performance, Enhanced Games has rightly been nicknamed the “Olympic Games on Steroids”. Originally announced as a concept in 2023, the Enhanced Games will host its first ever edition in May of next year, in las Vegas, with eight different events in swimming (50- and 100-meter races in freestyle and butterfly), track (100-meter sprint and 100/110-meter hurdles) and weightlifting (snatch, clean and jerk).

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Beijing recently held the so-called “world’s first humanoid robot half marathon,” but instead of putting humans to shame, the participating robots only showed off their weaknesses.

Robotics companies, especially Chinese ones, have been busy showing off their revolutionary creations, like SE01, a robot capable of mimicking a natural gait, Star1 – the world’s fastest robot, or the NEO Gamma, an AI-powered humanoid butler, but a recent running event held in Beijing proved that they still have a long way to go. The 2025 Beijing Yizhuang Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half Marathon featured a special running lane for the 21 different robots registered to take part in what was marketed as the world’s first-ever humanoid robot half-marathon. It was supposed to showcase the huge progress made by Chinese robotics companies, but judging by some media reports, the event was a massive failure.

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Popular Cambodian beauty pageant Miss and Mister Majestic has been getting a lot of attention after photos of its “ordinary-looking” participants went viral on social media.

The winner of Mister Majestic 2025 will represent Cambodia in the Mister Universe international beauty pageant, but the contest has created a lot of buzz online due to the questionable looks of some participants. Last month, organizers released the introductory photos of the 17 male participants selected to take part in the competition to become Mister Majestic, and, judging by the feedback on Cambodian social media, they were not what people were expecting. It’s true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but many people complained that most of the guys competing for the title of Mister Majestic looked ordinary, and some of them had sub-standard looks.

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China’s capital city of Beijing is all set to host an interesting half-marathon that will set thousands of human runners against dozens of bipedal robots developed by some of the world’s leading robotics companies.

This coming April, the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area (E-Town) will be hosting an interesting running event for both humans and human-like robots. 12,000 people are expected to take part in the event alongside dozens of bipedal robots developed by major robotics companies, including Tesla, Boston Dynamics and 1X, making this one of the strangest half-marathons in history. Participating robots will need to have a human-inspired appearance, be between 0.5 and 2 meters tall (so no giant mechs allowed), and have the ability to run or at least walk on two legs. The winners, be they human or robot, will receive prize money depending on their performance.

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Subida Impossível (Impossible Climb) is a challenging motocross hill-climbing event in Portugal that more than lives up to its suggestive name.

Every year, dozens of experienced motocross bike riders gather in the Portuguese city of Silves for a chance to become legends among their peers. Subida Impossível is one of the toughest motocross challenges in the world, requiring perfect control of the bike in order to complete a 110-meter-long course up a rocky hill. 110 meters may not seem like much for professional riders, but keep in mind that in some places, the gradient is over 80%, not to mention the unpredictable terrain and a very narrow course. Let’s just say that it’s not called Impossible Climb for nothing and that there is a reason why only a handful of participants have completed the hill climb in over two decades.

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55-year-old Hilde Dosogne of Belgium recently set a new world record for most consecutive marathons after running 366 full marathons (over 15,000 km) in 2024.

On May 30, 2024, Hilde Dosogne had already broken the women’s world record for most consecutive marathons – 150, set by Erchana Murray Bartlett – but she didn’t stop running until December 31st, when she recorded her 366th consecutive full marathon of the year. It’s a monumental achievement on par with that of the men’s category set in 2023 by Brazilian runner Hugo Farias who also completed 366 marathons. As you can imagine, running 42.195 km per day, every day, for a year is incredibly taxing on the body, but while Hilde had to overcome fatigue and bursitis (painful inflammation of the joints), she claims that the mental stress of having to show up at the starting line every day was her most difficult challenge.

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A short clip featuring two very hot “humanoid robots” being showcased at this year’s Beijing World Robot Conference has sparked a heated online debate about whether they are actual robots.

This year’s Beijing World Robot Conference features hundreds of international exhibitors and over a thousand special guests, but the event recently went viral for something that has less to do with technology and more with makeup and cosplay. Ex-Robot, a Chinese company that specializes in bionic humanoid robots, unveiled its latest creations in front of hundreds of journalists and visitors, and while they were definitely impressive-looking, two of them really stood out because of their doll-like appearance. Many X users were impressed by how attractive the two robots looked, while others wondered if they were actual robots or just real women cosplaying as androids.

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A  football field at the Luzhniki Olympic Sports Complex on the outskirts of Moscow recently hosted the world’s longest football game, which lasted a total of 26 hours.

To celebrate All-Russian Football Day last Saturday, two teams of 7 players each gathered at the Luzhniki Olympic Sports Complex to break the record for the longest football match ever. The game started at noon on Saturday and ended after 26 hours, at 2 in the afternoon on Sunday. The previous record had been set in 2014 when two teams played the beautiful game for 24 hours straight. This time around, the Red Team defeated the White Team with a score of 416 goals to 409.

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After plastering the whole of Manhattan with fliers for several months, a mystery man known as Cheeseball Man gathered a crowd of hundreds to watch him eat a whole tub of cheeseballs.

Meet Cheeseball Man, the superhero New Yorkers never knew they needed. His superpower? Mesmerizing crowds with his insatiable craving for cheeseballs. It all started with some fliers showing a man with an orange ski mask holding a large tub full of cheeseballs and inviting everyone to come watch him devour the cheesy treats in Manhattan’s Union Square Park, on April 27th. The fliers went up months before the big day, and although Cheeseman didn’t really expect a large crowd to accept his invitation, he was blown away by the size of his audience. Close to 1,000 people gathered in Union Square Park to watch him gobble down his jar of cheeseballs, and videos of the big event have so far been viewed millions of times online.

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One of the most controversial forms of entertainment in US history, dance marathons saw participants dancing continuously for days, weeks, and sometimes months for a chance to win food and money.

Too much of a good thing can be bad for you, and apparently, that also includes a seemingly benign activity like dancing. During the 1920s, the revival of the Olympic Games sparked a massive interest in impressive feats of strength and endurance, which led to the rise in popularity of dance contests that lasted for extended periods of time. In 1923 the dance marathon craze saw world records for dancing without stopping being broken virtually on a daily basis, but things really got out of hand when the prosperous 1920s faded into the Great Depression of the 1930s. The harmless dance contest transformed into twisted spectacles where people literally died of exhaustion on the dancefloor for the chance to win much-needed cash prizes.

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Every year, Germany hosts the Stapler Cup, a competitive event that sees hundreds of forklift drivers from around the world going head to head in a series of difficult challenges for the title of world’s best forklift operator.

Competitive forklift driving probably doesn’t sound like the most exciting competitive event in the world, but that’s probably because you’ve never heard of the Stapler Cup. This yearly event organized by Linde Materials and Handling (Linde MH) is not only regarded as the ultimate test for certified forklift operators but also as an entertaining event that draws tens of thousands of spectators. Thousands of forklift drivers attempt to qualify for the Stapler Cup in national events, so only the very best get to showcase their skills on the big stage in a series of tests aimed at pushing their talent, coordination, and reflexes to the limit.

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As part of a post-Diwali celebration in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhidavad village, brave men lie on the ground and allow themselves to be trampled by dozens of cattle in the name of religion.

The festival of Diwali is marked with various rituals and traditions across India, but none quite as bizarre as the custom of one village in Madhya Pradesh, where men lie on the ground and allow cows to walk all over them in the hopes that it will make all their wishes come true. According to tradition, the cows are worshipped in the village in the morning, and then daredevils lie down on the ground while the cows trample them. People believe that 33 crore (330 million) gods and goddesses reside in cows, and by allowing cows to walk over them, one receives the blessings of the gods.

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Japanese men who carry mobile shrines known as mikoshi every year as part of important Shinto festivals are left with giant callouses on their shoulders that they display as badges of honor.

Carrying mikoshi shrines is considered a great honor among Japanese Shintoists, and while some may do it just once in their lives, the most dedicated of them actually help carry the mikoshi every year, for decades. Because these mobile shrines and the large wooden beams that support them can weigh over a ton, the pressure on the bearers’ shoulders is significant, and after years of service, the shoulders start to develop large callouses known as ‘mikoshi dako’. They are not the prettiest things in the world to look at, but mikoshi bearers wear them as badges of honor.

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The Dutch Headwind Time Trial Championship is only 8.5 kilometers long, but it is considered one of the hardest cycling challenges in the world.

If you’ve ever ridden a bike against a reasonably strong wind, you know just how difficult dealing with the extra drag can be. Now imagine doing it in winds of well over 100km (60mph), over a distance of nearly kilometers, using a single-gear bicycle. Some people say that the Tour de France is the hardest bicycle race in the world, while others think that the title should go to Race Across America, but in terms of difficulty per kilometer, the Dutch Headwind Championship could definitely throw its hat in for the title as well. It only takes place during storms, when the wind force is expected to be at least 7, on the Oosterscheldekering storm barrier, which faces the North Sea.

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Australia’s Phil Gore recently set a new world record at the 2023 Dead Cow Gully Backyard Masters Ultramarathon by running a whopping 425 miles (685 kilometers) in four days.

The Dead Cow Gully Backyard Masters is billed as a ‘race with no finish line’ by its organizers, and that makes sense because the format requires runners to complete a loop of 6.7km every hour and the race continues until only one runner remains. This year’s event was held on a farm in Nanango, 112 miles northwest of Brisbane, Australia. The endurance race began at 7 am on Saturday, June 17th, and ended four and a half days later, when there was only one person still running, Australian Phil Gore. After running the 6.7-km lap no less than 102 times, he was finally declared the winner.

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