Fred Kerley, an American sprinter who is a former world champion and a two-time Olympic medallist, has become the most high-profile athlete to join the Enhanced Games, where there will be no dope testing done on athletes. Interestingly, Kerley’s move to join the event comes when he is serving a ban for missed doping tests and is reportedly mulling challenging the ban in courts.
Kerley was the 100 meters world champion at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Oregon. He also has two medals at the Olympic Games — a silver in Tokyo 2021 and a bronze from Paris 2024. But given his current ban, Kerley is missing from the ongoing World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
“This now gives me the opportunity to dedicate all my energy to pushing my limits and becoming the fastest human to ever live,” Kerley is quoted as saying on the Enhanced Games website.
In recent months, Kerley has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. In May this year, the American sprinter was charged in Florida with punching a woman, a hurdler who also competed in the Olympics. That came just a few months after he was arrested for allegedly punching a Miami Beach police officer on Jan. 2, an incident in which police used a Taser on him. His lawyers say Kerley is innocent of those charges.
President of World Athletics Sebastian Coe, who was a legendary track and field athlete back in the day was asked for a comment on the development by the media recently, where he said: “We’re in a championships. There’s nothing more I need to say. We’ll look at it when we get out of here.”
The event will be held in Las Vegas in May next year with eye-catching prize money of $5,00,000 per event. This includes a prize purse of $2,50,000 awarded to champions. The Enhanced Games event will also have a $1 million bounty for athletes who break world records in the 100-meter sprint on the track or in the 50-meter freestyle in swimming.
So far, the Enhanced Games have announced Paris Olympics silver-medal swimmer Ben Proud as one of the athletes confirmed to compete in the event. The international swimming federation, World Aquatics, has already passed a rule that states that any swimmer who competes in the Enhanced Games will be prohibited from competing in events under their jurisdiction. This rule was challenged by the organisers of the Enhanced Games, who filed an $800 million lawsuit against the federation and others for what it said was an illegal attempt to get athletes to boycott its league.
(With inputs from Associated Press)
© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
