American sprinter Fred Kerley has been provisionally suspended for an anti-doping whereabouts violation, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced Tuesday. Kerley plans to contest the charge.
The AIU, which handles anti-doping cases for track and field, issued a notice of charge to Kerley. According to the sport’s anti-doping rules, any combination of three missed tests or whereabouts failures in a 12-month period would constitute a violation.
On X, Kerley posted a letter from his lawyer, dated Aug. 4, that said he plans to appeal the charge.
“(Kerley) strongly believes that one (or) more of his alleged missed tests should be set aside either because he was not negligent or because the Doping Control Officer did not do what was reasonable under the circumstances to locate him at his designated location,” the statement said. “Fred will not comment further at this time out of respect for the process, and looks forward to presenting his case to the appointed hearing panel.”
The whereabouts failure charge adds to a list of issues for Kerley this season. He was arrested in May after allegedly hitting his former girlfriend while he was in Miami for a Grand Slam Track meeting, and he missed U.S. trials for unspecified reasons earlier this month — the first time he has missed trials since 2017.
Kerley is the often-overlooked bronze medalist from last summer’s 100-meter Olympic men’s final, where fellow American Noah Lyles edged out Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson by five-thousandths of a second to win gold. Kerley was 0.02 seconds behind to take third. He also won silver in the 100-meter at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
In 2022, Kerley was the 100-meter world champion in Eugene, Oregon, and has won medals (either individually or in the 4x100m or 4x400m relay) at the past four world championships.
He is tied for seventh on the all-time list of fastest 100m runners and shares the position with Christian Coleman and Trayvon Bromell as the third-fastest American men ever, with a time of 9.76 seconds. Kerley is also 10th all-time for 400m (43.64s), one of only three men — along with Wayde van Niekerk and Michael Norman — to run sub-10s, sub-20s and sub-44s for 100m, 200m and 400m.
He will not be in Tokyo next month for the world championships, having missed trials, which means the U.S. will be missing a leg of the 4x100m team that was disqualified in the Olympic final in Paris.
Kerley’s provisional suspension isn’t the only ongoing anti-doping case involving a U.S. sprinter. Erriyon Knighton — who became the youngest individual sprint medalist at a world championships when he won bronze in the 200m at age 18 in 2022 — also has a case pending before the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Knighton was provisionally suspended in March 2024 after testing positive for a metabolite of the anabolic steroid trenbolone. Last June, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) determined that this came from contaminated meat, and he was permitted to run at U.S. trials. The AIU has appealed the no-fault or negligence decision by USADA.
(Photo: Kevin Voigt / Getty Images)
Source link
