Olympic medallist Fred Kerley joins pro-doping Enhanced Games
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A 2022 photo shows the US' Fred Kerley with his gold medal for winning the men's 100 metres final at the World Athletics Championships.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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NEW YORK – Olympic 100m silver and bronze medallist Fred Kerley will compete in the inaugural Enhanced Games, weeks after the Athletics Integrity Unit slapped the American with a provisional suspension for anti-doping whereabouts violation.
The 100m world champion in 2022, he is the first track athlete and first American man to join the event that permits athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs that are banned in official competition.
The 30-year-old won 100m silver at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and captured bronze at the 2024 Paris Games.
“I’m looking forward to this new chapter and competing at the Enhanced Games,” said Kerley on Sept 17.
“The world record has always been the ultimate goal of my career. This now gives me the opportunity to dedicate all my energy to pushing my limits and becoming the fastest human to ever live.”
A US$1 million (S$1.3 million) bonus is on offer to any competitor who breaks the world record in the 50m freestyle (swimming) or 100m (athletics) at the Games. Athletes will also receive appearance fees and prize money, besides a US$250,000 bonus for setting world marks.
Organisers said the Games can help transform sports science as they buck global anti-doping norms, while critics have derided the event as dangerous to athletes’ health.
The Games launched an antitrust lawsuit against World Aquatics, USA Swimming and the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) for up to US$800 million in August, alleging an illegal campaign to “crush” the competition. Wada previously slammed the event as “dangerous and irresponsible”.
Kerley joins several elite swimmers who have already signed on for the competition, including Paris Olympic 50m freestyle silver medallist Ben Proud, the first British athlete to do so.
“Fred’s choice to compete with us not only demonstrates our goal of hosting the most exciting athletic competitions out there, but also solidifies the growing appeal of the Enhanced Games as the future of elite sporting competition,” said Enhanced Games chief executive officer Maximilian Martin.
However, six-gold world champion Kyle Chalmers turned down a “life-changing” sum of money to join the Games.
Chalmers’ manager, Phoebe Rothfield of W Sports & Media, confirmed the 27-year-old swimmer was approached.
“It is life-changing money for a swimmer – or any Australian Olympic athlete for that matter,” she said in comments published by the Sydney Morning Herald.
“It could have set him and his young family up and helped with the mortgage, but Kyle said ‘no’ from the onset. It was a brief discussion.
“What drives him is competing for his country, standing on the podium in the green and gold and doing the sport because he loves it.”
Chalmers, the 100m freestyle champion at the 2016 Rio Olympics and runner-up in Tokyo and Paris, is aiming to compete at a fourth Games at Los Angeles 2028.
World Aquatics announced a by-law in June that will prevent any athlete or official who supports or endorses doping from competing in its events, meaning moving from traditional competition to the Enhanced Games is a one-way street.
The inaugural Enhanced Games are set for Las Vegas in May 2026. REUTERS, AFP
