Suspended U.S. sprinter Fred Kerley has become the first American man and first track athlete to commit to the no-testing Enhanced Games.
The Enhanced Games -- a startup Olympic-style sports event promising no drug testing -- announced Kerley's participation on social media Wednesday.
"This now gives me the opportunity to dedicate all my energy to pushing my limits and becoming the fastest human to ever live," Kerley said in a statement.
Kerley, 30, is a two-time Olympic medalist in the 100 meters, winning silver in Tokyo 2021 and a bronze in Paris last year. He is also a six-time medalist at the track and field world championships, including a gold in the 100 in 2022.
But he has been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit for whereabouts failures over the past year and is not at the world championships in Tokyo this week.
Kerley's lawyers said in August, when he provisional suspension was announced, that he would look to contest the whereabouts failures.
The Enhanced Games portray themselves as pushing the limits of human ability while using science to monitor athletes' intake without punishing them for taking drugs that are banned under the world anti-doping code. The games have signed a handful of athletes to compete in Las Vegas in May with competitions in track, swimming and weightlifting offering $500,000 per event, including $250,000 awarded to first place. There is 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.
Kerley is the most high-profile signing for the start-up league, which also recently signed Paris Olympics silver medal swimmer Ben Proud.
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe has said track and field athletes who compete at the Enhanced Games would be banned "for a long time."
"We're in a championships," Coe said Wednesday about the Kerley news. "There's nothing more I need to say. We'll look at it when we get out of here."
Brett Clothier, the head of the Athletics Integrity Unit that handles anti-doping matters for World Athletics, said, "Among our biggest concerns is about the health of Fred Kerley and other athletes who sign up for" the Enhanced Games. "It's kind of grotesque, the athletes, the people who are being signed are being used."
In May, Kerley was charged in Florida 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.
Kerley's lawyers have said he is innocent of those charges.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.