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An American Olympic medalist is going down an unorthodox athletic path.
Fred Kerley, who won the 2022 world championships in the 100 meters, will be competing in next year’s Enhanced Games, an Olympic-style sporting event that allows performance-enhancing drugs.
Kerley is now the first track athlete and first American male athlete to commit to the games.
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Fred Kerley reacts after the men’s 4x100m relay final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Stade de France. (James Lang/USA TODAY Sports)
Kerley won a bronze medal in Paris in the summer in the 100 meters, while teammate Noah Lyles earned his first Olympic gold, and a silver in the Tokyo Olympics. He also has world championships in the 4×400-meter relay in 2019 and the 4×100-meter relay in 2023.
The sprinter has had legal troubles dating back to last year. According to an arrest affidavit obtained by Fox News Digital in January, Kerley and his wife got into a verbal, and then physical, dispute on May 6, 2024, his birthday, when Kerley’s wife was in contact with an “unknown person on Instagram.”
Kerley approached his wife aggressively, and she punched him out of fear, according to the affidavit. Kerley then “grabbed the victim, pushed her to the ground, encircled his arm around her neck and impeded her breathing.” A probable cause alert was then entered into the jail’s system, and he was subsequently charged following the January arrest.
In May, Dania Beach police arrived at a south Florida hotel before 8 a.m. ET after Olympic hurdler Alaysha Johnson claimed Kerley hit her during a conditioning appointment for a meet. Kerley said he was “going to f— everyone up in here up,” Johnson reportedly said. Kerley was alleged to have hit Johnson in the face, causing her nose to bleed. Police reportedly said the injuries “were consistent with her statements.”
Kerley was set to run in the 100-meter dash on Saturday and the 200-meter on Sunday at the Grand Slam Track event during the weekend of the alleged incident. The event later confirmed that Kerley would not compete. Kerley had been booked on a first-degree misdemeanor charge.
Fred Kerley (USA) in a men’s 100m round 1 heat during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Stade de France. (Andrew Nelles/USA TODAY Sports)
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Kerley was a part of the 4×100-meter team in Paris that was disqualified due to a botched handoff. Lyles figured to be a part of that team but fell ill with COVID-19 earlier in the week, which contributed to him falling short in the 200 meters, an event for which he had been the heavy favorite.
Kerley accused the United States Track and Field Association of playing favorites by adding Lyles to the 4×400-meter team in the 2024 world championships.
Enhanced Games founder Dr. Aron D’Souza has been critical of the Olympics and sport governing bodies in the past, calling them hypocritical when it came to natural sport and athletes’ health and even claiming his event will be safer.
“For the people who say this is unsafe or unhealthy, I’d tell them that the two longest-serving sponsors of the Olympics are Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, the two organizations that have done the most damage to health in human history. There’s actually no doubt about that,” D’Souza said in a 2024 interview with Fox News Digital.
“Fast food and fake sugar have done more damage to human health than anyone in human history. You can read the history books. The rise of McDonald’s and the rise of Coca-Cola have been very much attached to the Olympic movement. So, when the IOC and its cronies want to lecture me about safety, I point to their own history.”
Fred Kerley (USA) celebrates after winning bronze in the men’s 100m final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Stade de France. (Yukihito Taguchi/USA TODAY Sports)
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The Enhanced Games are set to take place next May in Las Vegas. Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen, of Australia, is set to compete, where rewards of up to $1 million are being offered.
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