FILE - Fred Kerley, of the United States, celebrates after his third place finish in the men's 100-meter final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, on Aug. 4, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)
TOKYO (AP) — 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 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 .
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.â€
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 .
The Enhanced Games is set to debut next May in Las Vegas, with track, swimming and weightlifting contests offering $500,000 per event, including $250,000 awarded to first place. There's also a $1 million bonus for breaking world records in the 100-meter sprint on the track or in the 50-meter freestyle in swimming.
Seb Coe, the president of World Athletics, said he had heard the Kerley news.
“We're in a championships,†Coe said. “There's nothing more I need to say. We'll look at it when we get out of here.â€
Earlier this year, World Aquatics passed a rule to banish athletes who participated in the Enhanced Games. Enhanced Games then against the federation and others for what it said was an illegal attempt to get athletes to boycott its league.
In May, 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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