Fred Kerley was been issued a two-year ban by the Athletics Integrity Unit on Friday after its disciplinary and appeals tribunal ruled that he missed three drug tests or filing mandates within a 12-month period.
Kerley, 30, has been serving a provisional suspension since last August and will compete in the Enhanced Games in May in Las Vegas.
According to the AIU, Kerley’s whereabout infractions occurred between May and December 2024 and a possible fourth violation committed on December 7, 2024 was not considered.
The ruling was part of an appeal process Kerley and his attorney said they would pursue when the provisional suspension was first announced last year. In a statement last August, Kerley felt that “one of more of his alleged missed tests” should have been removed because of how testing agents handled reaching him at designated locations.
But in its 53-page ruling, AIU officials said Kerley’s whereabouts violations occurred in 2024 on May 11, June 13 and December 6 and 7.
“Unfortunately, sophisticated doping substances may only be detectable within an athlete’s sample for a few days or even hours after administration,” AIU head Brett Clothier said. “Anti-doping organizations need to be able to test athletes without notice on the day and hour of our choosing, otherwise anti-doping programs will not work, and dopers will easily avoid detection. Whereabouts rules are therefore fundamental to the integrity of sport and must be respected.”
The inquiry revealed that Kerley did not dispute his whereabouts failure on June 13, 2024 but said a technical issue with the United States Anti-Doping Agency app for athletes was at fault for his May 11, 2024 infraction and the December 6 and 7, 2024 violation was due to the action of the testing officer.
However, the AIU investigation found that in May 2024 Kerley said he would be available for testing at his home in Miami but was not present and later revealed to be in Jamaica. In December 2024, Kerley’s location was updated to a residence in West Hollywood, California but repeated attempts by a testing agent to meet with him to collect a sample went unanswered.
Kerley’s suspension will stand but he will be able to appeal the tribunal’s findings.
“The Tribunal accepts the AIU’s contention that No Advance Notice Out-of-Competition Testing is a fundamental aspect of the AIU’s anti-doping program to combat the threat of doping to the integrity of Athletics,” the AIU said in statement. “As argued, by the AIU, if those that are willing to cheat are able to put themselves beyond the reach of testing agencies for several days (or even hours) they will be able to dope with impunity.”
In a social media post on Friday, Kerley addressed the AIU’s decision and pointed out that he was apparently subject to an 11-hour process fielding questions from officials.
“I recently spent 11 hours in a control meeting explaining myself to people who are supposed to understand the system they run,” Kerley said. “Eleven hours repeating the same answers, the same explanations, and the same facts. If it takes that long for organizations responsible for protecting sport to understand basic things about an athlete’s situation, then the problem is not the athlete — the problem is the system.”
Kerley also pointed out that athletes subject to drug testing have to constantly make their locations known within a small time frame and that even unintentional errors could trigger events that contribute to violations.
“Athletes dedicate their lives to this sport,” he said. “We sacrifice our bodies, our families, and our time chasing greatness. Yet too often the system treats athletes like suspects before anything else. Athletes are required to report their location 365 days a year through the whereabouts system, often down to a one hour window. One missed filing or simple mistake can suddenly put an athlete’s entire career at risk.”
Because of the failed appeal, Kerley has been ordered to pay World Athletics nearly $3,000 in legal fees and other expenses — and his competitive results between December 6, 2024 and August 12, 2025 have been disqualified.
Kerley, in another social media post, showed the notice from the governing body that asked he pay the fees by March 20 and expressed his disapproval.
“So the same system that prosecutes the case thinks I should also pay their legal costs?,” Kerley said. “Athletes already fund this sport with our performances, our likeness, and our labor. Now we’re supposed to finance the legal system used against us too?”
Kerley won silver in the men’s 100m at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and bronze in the event at the 2024 Paris Games in addition to gold for Team USA as part of its men’s 4x400m world championship relay team in 2019. He also won world championship gold in 2022 in the men’s 100m and gold in 2023 in the men’s 4×100m relay.
