Fred Kerley Is The Fastest Man In The World In The 100 Meters For The Usa

Comment EUGENE, Ore. – The tattoo on the inside of Fred Kerley’s left arm reads Meme. It’s the name he uses for his aunt, the woman who raised him in Taylor, Texas. He moved in with Virginia Curley when he was 2 years old after his father went to prison and his mother lost her way. He lived with his siblings and his aunt’s children, 13 children under one roof in a three bedroom house. “He was never given stuff,” said his agent Ricky Sims. “He had to go get things because that’s how it was when there were so many mouths to feed. He wanted it for a long time. He really wants it, to be the best and one of the best of all time.” Allyson Felix is ​​happy to say goodbye to athletics Kerley cemented his all-time status Saturday night at Hayward Field. In a 100m final drenched in red, white and blue at the world athletics championships, Curley claimed the title of world’s fastest man by inches over compatriots Marvin Bracy-Williams and Trayvon Brommel. Kerley finished in 9.86 seconds, 0.02 seconds ahead of bronze medalist Brommel and second-placed Bracey-Williams, who led until the final five meters. Kerley’s save gave him the crowning achievement of a rising career and the Americans a sweep of the podium. For the U.S. men’s sprint, it marked redemption after a disappointment at the Tokyo Olympics last summer, where Brommel failed to advance to the semifinals as the favorite, the 4×100 relay team lost the baton in qualifying and failed to win individual gold medals. For Kerley, a soft-spoken 27-year-old with bulging muscles and few words, it marked the final pinnacle of a unique career that was still on the rise. “The fastest man in the world,” Kerley said Saturday night. “That means a lot.” In early 2021, Curley expected to challenge for an Olympic gold medal in the 400 meters, the event in which he was once ranked No. 1 in the world and remains the eighth fastest of all time. He switched early last year, with much derision within the sport, to the 100m. He won the Olympic silver medal and this year he separated himself from the rest of the world. “I believe in myself, first and foremost,” Kerley said. “I put in the work to make it great. I’m not coming to run to be second best.” Kerley reached the pinnacle of his sport years after a turbulent childhood. Fred Coleman was born. Virginia Curley adopted him and his siblings after his father went to prison and his mother “took a wrong turn in life,” Curley once wrote in Spikes magazine. Virginia Kerley, now 66, watched her nephew become the world’s fastest man from home in San Antonio. “I think about her every day,” Kerley said. “She sacrificed her life for me and my brothers and sisters and my cousins. It’s amazing to accomplish something. Not too many people in my position did what I had to do.” There have been faster sprinters than Kerley. They never existed like him. Other runners have traded distances in search of success or any easier path to a medal. No one, perhaps, has topped the world at one distance, then done the same at another that makes such different demands on a sprinter. Oregon gets world premiere of track and field. Will the rest of America take notice? “What he’s trying to do is unprecedented, at least in recent history,” said Olympian Ato Boldon, now an analyst for NBC. Kerley is one of three men, along with South African Wayde van Niekerk and American Michael Norman, to run the 400 meters in under 44 seconds, the 200 meters in under 20 seconds and the 100 meters in under 10 seconds. Add up their best performances in each event using the World Athletics scoring system and Kerley’s rating is the best. It took time for Simms, a prominent agent who represented Usain Bolt, to understand how Kerley works. Most sprinters change their training drastically when they move between the 100, 200 and 400. Kerley thinks he could run his best 400 right now. He declared Saturday night that, if asked, he would run in both the 4×100 and 4×400 relays at these championships, an unheard-of double. “Hopefully I can do both,” Curley said. “I’m convinced now, if you gave him a chance to run the 4×400 at this meet, I think he would run a 43 split,” Simms said. How big of a statement is that? When the US 4×400 relay team won gold in Tokyo and set its fastest time in 13 years, only one runner, Rye Benjamin, broke 44 seconds. “He’s definitely the best the series has ever been,” Simms said. “Michael Johnson could run the 100, 200 and 400, but almost at different times. He was preparing for the shortest and he did it. Fred’s ability to do all three at the same time, that’s something that’s very unique.” Kerley has always insisted he was just following the instructions of his coach, Alleyne Francique, when he switched to the 100 meters in early 2021. That’s not what actually happened, though. An injury decided for him. Kerley ran two 400-meter races in early 2021, after which his ankle was “swollen like a balloon,” Simms said. Kerley could run straight without pain, but the turns destroyed his ankle. Simms joined Kerley in the 100, 200 and 400 at the U.S. Olympic trials. On the day the athletes had to register for their races, Kerley sent Simms a photo of a swollen ankle and told him he couldn’t make it through three laps of 400 meters. They decided Kerley would focus on the 100 and 200, a decision that drew scorn from track experts. Why sacrifice a potential gold medal in the 400, they thought, to chase glory in a race in which he had little experience? “He knew he could be good,” Simms said. “He always loved short sprints, because that’s where he came from. But that almost forced him down that path because of that injury.” Kerley made the team, went even faster at the Olympics and won a silver medal, losing to surprise Olympic gold medalist Marcell Jacobs of Italy by 0.04 seconds. He had become the second fastest in the 100 meters after only a few months of training tailored to the event. He set himself apart this year, running 9.76 seconds — seventh fastest all-time — at the U.S. championships and 9.79 in Friday night’s opening round. By the time he squared off in lane 4 on Saturday night, Kerley had become the overwhelming favorite. Four Americans advanced to the eight-man final, with world champion Christian Coleman finishing sixth. Curley blocked from the blocks, but the pitch stayed with him. On the outside in lane 8, Brommel got ahead of the pack. Bracy-Williams, running to the left of Kerley in lane 3, took a small lead. At the finish line, Curley threw up and strained his neck. The trio knew he had taken a scan. They weren’t sure about the order. Curley jogged to the top of the track and stared at the board. “I didn’t know until I looked at the clock,” Kerley said. “Said Fred Kerley, No. 1.” When Bracy-Williams and Brommel’s names were flashed next, Bracy-Williams confronted Bromell, his training partner. “I don’t know what was going through Marvin’s head,” Brommel said. “Man, I’ve been in the trenches with this guy since day one,” Bracy-Williams said. “To see him come back and fight like hell to get a medal like that, how can you not?” Brommel, 27, won a bronze medal at the 2015 world championships and reached the 100m final at the 2016 Rio Olympics. In that race, he injured his Achilles tendon and left the track in a wheelchair . He would undergo two Achilles surgeries and fade to the sidelines of the sport. In 2018, he wrote a retirement letter and almost signed it. He found religion and therapy and suddenly rose to the top of the sport again, winning the U.S. Olympic trials last summer — only to collapse in Tokyo, not even making it past the qualifying round and then messing up in a relay. “Man, it was tough,” Brommel said. “I’ve always had the talent. They’ve seen it all these years. I work hard. It’s not a day off. So when I didn’t show up in Tokyo, it wasn’t that I wasn’t ready. But I wasn’t mentally ready. To be around guys like Marvin and Fred, to see how they stay ready and react to those championships, now I know what it takes to have that championship mentality.” Bracy-Williams, too, had to fight his way back. The 28-year-old left athletics in 2016 to pursue a football career. He broke his arm in 2019 and decided that was enough football. When he returned to the track in 2020, he ran 100 meters in 10.33 seconds, unfit for a semi-final on an elite track, let alone the medal stand. In a semifinal at the U.S. Olympic Trials, he was injured and limped to the line. “To come back and do that, man, it just means everything,” Bracy-Williams said. No one in the world was faster than him on Saturday except Kerley. Kerley runs with tremendous power and ruthless intensity. Faster sprinters usually treat the preliminary laps as graceful, just enough to get into the lead and reach the finish in about 10 seconds. Kerley goes through the tape as if trying to stomp on his opponents soul. He won the first round of the race on Friday night in a streak that no one had won this year and only 10, including himself, had ever gone through. “The guy is out of his mind right now,” Bracy-Williams said. “We always expect fireworks from him, especially early. He’s a guy who likes to come out, make a statement early.” Canadian sprinter Andre deGrasse said Kerley’s strength from the 400m allows him to maintain top speed longer than his rivals. Boldon said Kerley’s experience in the 400 explains how he can eliminate the heats and still have enough energy to win the finals. “He’s a quarter miler,” Boldon said. “Do you know what kind of pain they go through?” Standing 6-foot-3 with bulging muscles, Kerley towers over his competitors. In some races, he looks like a kid sprinting in…