"Enhanced Games": Fred Kerley, 100m bronze medalist at the Paris Olympics, will take part in the Doping Games

The "Enhanced Games" have their star. The organizers of these "enhanced" Games, where doping will reportedly be authorized and regulated, have announced the upcoming participation of Fred Kerley. The 30-year-old American is none other than the bronze medalist in the 100m at the Paris Olympics last summer and the silver medalist in Tokyo in 2021.

The timing of the announcement, right in the middle of the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo , is anything but trivial. This is the latest act of defiance against World Athletics, the International Federation of Athletics, and its president, Sebastian Coe, a major critic of the project. In early 2024, the latter had harshly criticized the event, then in the making, as "bullshit ," threatening athletes "stupid enough" to take part with "banning . " "We're in the middle of the championships. I have nothing more to say. We'll see about that when it's over," Sebastian Coe simply responded to a few journalists in Tokyo on Thursday.

Without going too far, it's unclear whether we'll ever see Fred Kerley again at a World Athletics-branded international competition. Absent from the trip to Tokyo this week, he's already been provisionally suspended since early August for doping whereabouts failures.

It seems that this suspension has tipped him over the edge. The American justified his decision, pointing to the constraints that weigh on the daily life of a professional athlete. "I felt like I was in prison before, limited even in the over-the-counter medications I could take. Now, I have peace of mind," he said in a statement.

He also shared what drives him: Usain Bolt's 9.58 seconds in the 100m, the most prestigious world record, in effect since 2009. "It has always been the ultimate goal of my career. It gives me the opportunity to devote all my energy to pushing my limits to become the fastest human in history," said Kerley, a personal best of 9:76 and 2022 world champion . With, in the event of a better time than the Jamaican's, a nice jackpot of one million dollars at the end of the track. The other source of motivation for the Texan: " What had value 20 years ago no longer has value today. Unless they start paying athletes properly, people will put their personal interests before everything," he explains. "Sport cannot survive with outdated compensation models."

Fred Kerley is the first athletics representative to commit to the project. He joins a handful of select recruits. Swimmers, above all: Australian James Magnussen, double world champion in the 100m freestyle in 2011 and 2013 and triple Olympic medalist; Olympic runner-up in the 50m freestyle in Paris, Ben Proud; and Greek Kristian Gkolomeev.

The latter has already swum faster than the 50m freestyle world record, according to the organizers. At the launch press conference last May, the organization had assured, with video support, that Gkolomeev had swum the 50m freestyle in 20 seconds 89, two hundredths of a second less than the world record set by Brazilian Cesar Cielo in 2009 (20 seconds 91 in 2009).

Kerley's arrival puts the spotlight back on this controversial project, launched in 2023 by Australian entrepreneur Aron D'Souza and partly funded by Donald Trump Jr., the son of the American president. Initially announced for May 23-25, 2026, it is scheduled to take place from May 21-24 at Resorts World in Las Vegas, and is expected to feature swimming (50 and 100m freestyle, 50 and 100m butterfly), athletics (100m, 100 and 110m hurdles), and weightlifting.

The organizers are selling their soup by highlighting the monitored aspect of doping. "Performance-enhancing substances" will not be banned but will be "brought out of the shadows in complete transparency, safety, and under medical supervision," the organizers assure. The event, however, has sparked controversy in sporting and scientific circles. In addition to criticism from Sebastian Coe, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has deemed the project "dangerous and irresponsible."