By Mitch Phillips
EUGENE, Ore. (Reuters) – Fred Kerley followed in the biggest American sprint footsteps of all as he emulated Carl Lewis by leading home a U.S. clean sweep of the world 100 metres final on Saturday, but the two men could hardly be more different off the track.
Lewis led home 1-2-3s in 1983 and 1991, the only other times it has happened at the World Championships. He was the ultimate showman, revelling in his fame and happy to talk all day, especially about himself.
If social media had existed in his day you can be sure he would have been king of it.
Kerley has some way to go to match Lewis’s medal haul but he has already surpassed him by becoming the first man to win world medals at 100m and 400m, and he also hopes to get on the 200m podium in Eugene.
Getting him to talk about it, however, is another matter.
Asked how it felt to follow Lewis in leading the sweep, he said. “That was the Grace of ’91 and this is the Grace of ’22.”
Pressed on whether there was a defining moment that persuaded him to focus on the 100, he said, despite rarely racing the one lap distance over the last two years: “I feel like there’s no such thing. I’m still training 400s and I want to accomplish some great things.”
He did say that he did not panic when he felt Marvin Bracy marginally ahead as they closed on the line, saying that his compatriot dipped too early and “I just got it done.”
It was an incredibly close finish, with Kerley clocking 9.86 and both Bracy and Trayvon Bromell on 9.88 – Bracey taking silver by two thousandths of a second.
He was more forthcoming when talking about his upbringing.
“I moved to Taylor, Texas, around 2005 and me and my brothers and sisters we got adopted. It was 13 of us in one bedroom, we were on a pallet,” he said. “But we all had fun and enjoyed ourselves and we’re doing great things right now.”
Asked whether he felt he was now an inspiration for other youngsters going through a similarly tough upbringing, he said: “I feel like I’ve been a role model to a lot of people going from the junior college to Texas A&M, to being sponsored by Nike, to being on the podium in 2017 all the way to now.
“Maybe some might be looking up to me and thinking, if I can do it, they can do it.”
(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, editing by Peter Rutherford)
