Curley, the 27-year-old American who won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics, won the men’s event at the jewel of the world track and field championships in Eugene, Oregon, on Saturday night. He won in 9.86 seconds, leading the U.S. to a medal sweep ahead of Marvin Bracey and Trayvon Brommel, who each ran 9.88. It marked the first US medals in the men’s 100 meters since 1991 and the first medals at worlds since 2007. Curley passed Bracey on his left in the last 10 metres. The same Fred Curley who until early last year was considered a 400m sprinter. The same Fred Kerley who nine years ago walked onto the track team at South Plains Community College. The same Fred Curley who might never have pursued sprinting if he hadn’t broken his collarbone in the last game of his high school football career in Texas. “I said I was going to do some great things in junior college,” Kerley said Saturday night. “I talk crazy things. I think I keep saying crazy things.” The same Fred Kerley who has the words “Aunt” and “Meme” tattooed inside his biceps. FOLLOW WORLDS: Show schedule | Results | USA Roster | Important events “I was two when I first moved in with her, a little kid who didn’t know what was going on around him,” Kerley wrote in 2019. “My dad ended up in jail, my mom took a wrong turn in life, which meant aunt Virginia was the only one who could take care of me and my four brothers. Meme – as she is better known – raised her children, her brother’s children and us, with 13 children all living under one roof. He also raised the two or three generations after me, and is still raising them now – 25 children in all.” Curley said great-grandmother Virginia sometimes went without food to make sure he and his siblings ate. Kerley experienced more setbacks as he transformed into a world-class sprinter. As a sophomore at South Plains, he felt leg pain in the middle of anchoring a relay. “I kept going before I fell over the finish line when I realized I had torn my quad,” he said, according to World Athletics. “I had a hole in my leg and I could put my finger in the hole.” Kerley still made it to Texas A&M as a transfer. He broke out as a senior in 2017, lowering his personal best in the 400m from 45.10 to 43.70, making the world championship team and finishing the year as the world’s second-fastest man in the event. “I became elite by working my ass off,” Kerley said, according to Olympics.com. Last year, Kerley raised eyebrows by competing primarily in the 100 and 200 meters. He eventually chose those two events at the Olympic Trials, saying he dropped the 400 meters because of an ankle injury. “My ankle was swollen,” he said, according to Athletics Weekly. “At the last minute I decided to run the 100m and 200m, knowing I couldn’t make the turns [in the 400m] as I wanted.” It paid off. Curley took Olympic 100m silver in his world championships debut over the distance. Started 2021 with a 100m personal best of 10.49 from his South Plains days. He ended it by running 9.84 in the Olympiacos final. This year, he ran 9.76 and 9.77 over two hours at the USA Track and Field Championships last month. On Friday at worlds, he ran 9.79, the fastest first-round time at a world championship. Kerley was asked if this gold medal will change his life. “Athletics has already changed my life,” he said. Like Kerley, teaching partners Bracy and Bromell have their own multi-year stories to date. In 2013, Bracey left the Florida State football program after his redshirt freshman season to turn pro in track, a year before the Seminoles won their last national title. He unexpectedly made the 2016 Olympic team, was eliminated in the semifinals of Rio and then gave soccer another shot. He worked out for the Indianapolis Colts and Carolina Panthers in 2017, but did not play a regular season game. He was briefly a member of the Seattle Seahawks in 2018 and the Orlando Apollos of the AAF in 2019. He returned to track and field in 2020, going nearly three years between games. Now, he stands on the podium at an outdoor world championship for the first time at the age of 28. “My tenacity,” drives me, Bracey said. “I fought some things that I don’t talk about. I just go quietly and keep fighting.” Brommel last year ran the fastest 100 meters in the world before and after the Olympics, but in Tokyo he was eliminated in the semifinals. If he had won a medal in Japan, it would have marked an all-time rebound. Brommel was wheeled out of the Rio Olympics in a chair. He finished three total games in 2017, 2018 and 2019 due to injuries and was considered done. Bromell said he had written a retirement letter in 2018 that he planned to give to his agent. “I didn’t see any hope,” Brommel, who estimated he spent $300,000 traveling to the U.S. and Europe for medical treatments for his Achilles, told LetsRun.com. “I could barely run.” Italy’s Marcell Jacobs, the surprise Olympic gold medalist, withdrew before Saturday’s semifinals with injuries to both legs. Jacobs has been sidelined by illness and injury since winning the world 60m indoor title in March. Worlds continue Sunday with finals in the women’s 100m and US gold medal favorites in the men’s 110m hurdles and shot put and the women’s pole vault and hammer throw. Also on Saturday, Chase Ealey became the first American woman to win a world shot put title. Ealey came back from a fifth-place finish at the Olympic Trials to mark the second-best throw in American history this season. On Her Turf has more on Ealey here. Ethiopia’s Letesenbet Gidey, the world record holder in the 5000m, 10,000m and half marathon, won her first world gold by taking the 10,000m. Gidey, who was expelled from school as a teenager for refusing to run in PE class, held off world 5000m champion Hellen Obiri of Kenya in a furious five-woman race in the final lap of the 25-lap final. Ethiopian-born Dutchwoman Sifan Hassan was fourth, a year after taking gold in the 5000m and 10,000m and bronze in the 1500m in an unprecedented Olympic treble and then taking eight months off-season. On Her Turf has more on the women’s 10,000m here. “I really needed a break after the Tokyo Olympics,” Hassan said. “I was mentally crushed. I didn’t even care about running.” China’s Wang Jianan won the men’s long jump, beating Olympic champion Miltiadis Tedoglou of Greece by four centimeters, leaping from sixth to first in his sixth and final jump. Polish hammer thrower Paweł Fajdek became the third person to win five world outdoor titles in an individual event, joining Ukrainian pole vaulter Sergey Bubka (six titles) and German discus thrower Lars Riedel. All the favorites advanced to the women’s 100m semi-finals, including two-time Jamaican 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (10.87) and Elaine Thompson-Herah (11.15). Elsewhere in qualifying, notable eliminations included 2019 World High Jump bronze medalist Vashti Cunningham, US 110m hurdles champion Daniel Roberts, who crashed while leading his first lap, and US Olympic trials champion at 1500 m Elle St. Pierre. OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Our favorite! Follow @nbcolympictalk
