Two-time Olympic 100m medalist Fred Kerley has been suspended for two years — backdated to last August — for whereabouts failures, or missing drug tests.
In 2024, Kerley missed three drug tests in a 12-month span — which triggers a ban.
He was provisionally suspended last August, after which a disciplinary tribunal reviewed his case.
The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), which handles anti-doping for track and field, announced Friday that the tribunal ruled that Kerley was at fault for the missed tests and that he was “negligent and, to a certain extent, reckless” in not adhering to anti-doping rules.
Details of Kerley’s case are here.
Kerley’s two-year ban is backdated to the start of his provisional suspension last Aug. 12.
That could mean he will be ineligible for the September 2027 World Championships depending on the dates of that year’s USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships. Athletes traditionally must be eligible to compete at the nationals, usually held a month or two before worlds, to be eligible to be named to the team.
The ban can be appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Kerley has not announced yet whether he plans to appeal.
Bans for whereabouts failures typically range from one to two years depending on degree of fault.
Olympic-level athletes are required to provide and be present at daily locations for drug testers to find them for no-notice testing.
Last August, a press release from lawyer Howard Jacobs’ office stated that Kerley would contest the provisional ban and that Kerley “strongly believes that one of (sic) 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.”
Kerley disputed two missed tests. The tribunal found his explanation for one of them not “plausible.” For the other, the tribunal found that “nothing in the DCO’s conduct fell short of what he was reasonably required to do in the circumstances.”
Kerley, 30, won Olympic 100m silver in Tokyo and bronze in Paris. In between, he won the world 100m title in 2022, running 9.77 and 9.76 seconds in the semifinals and final.
It took three years until another sprinter ran faster -- Jamaican Kishane Thompson’s 9.75 in June 2025, the world’s best time in a decade.
