LAS VEGAS (AP) — Fred Kerley ran 100 meters in a pedestrian 9.97 seconds Sunday night to win the Enhanced Games in a race where the sprinters had to be placed in the starting blocks four times because of false starts and untied shoes.Kerley, who predicted Usain Bolt’s world record of 9.58 seconds would get “destroyed,” ran a time that would have placed him last at the Paris Olympics two years ago, where he ran 9.81 and won bronze.The only athlete to win the $1 million bonus for going faster than the world record over the four hours of swimming, weightlifting and track in the specially built stadium on the Las Vegas Strip was Kristian Gkolomeev, who closed the night by swimming the 50-meter free in 20.81 seconds. That record won’t go into the books, however, because the Enhanced Games, true to its name, allows performance-enhancing drugs that are banned in mainstream sports.
The men’s 50-meter freestyle world record of 20.88 seconds was set two months ago in a sanctioned event by Cameron McEvoy.Gkolomeev had also won a $1 million bonus from Enhanced last year for swimming faster than the world record during a “trial.”
“Another million, it’s not bad at all,” he said. “It’s going to change my life to the good, for sure.“The most iconic marks in Olympic sports, though, are in track, and when Kerley called out Bolt’s 17-year-old record, it made headlines and even got Bolt involved with a short post on social media: “OK,” he said.
