Former world sprint champion Fred Kerley has become the first track athlete and first American to join the no-drug-testing Enhanced Games.
Kerley is currently serving a ban for missed doping tests and is not at the world championships in Tokyo this week. His lawyers have said he is looking to contest the so-called whereabouts failures that led to his suspension.
The 30-year-old sprinter is the most high-profile signing for the start-up league, which also recently signed Paris Olympic silver-medal swimmer Ben Proud.
In a statement on the Enhanced Games website, Kerley says “This now gives me the opportunity to dedicate all my energy to pushing my limits and becoming the fastest human to ever live.”
Kerley won the 100 meters at world championships in 2022. He has two medals at the Olympics — silver in Tokyo in 2021 and bronze in Paris last year in an historically close 100-meter final.
The Enhanced Games is set to debut next May in Las Vegas, with track, swimming and weightlifting contests offering $500,000 first prizes.
In May, Kerley 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.
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