EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Before the race, U.S. fighter jets flew over the stadium. Then the Americans showed a different speed on the track.
Fred Kerley led the charge on All-American track and field night Saturday, headlining the sport’s first U.S. shot put competition, the men’s 100, in 31 years in the world. He set the red-white-blue stamp on Day 2 of the first championship on American soil.
“We said we were going to do it, and we did,” Kerley said in an interview at the track, moments after the crowd stopped chanting “USA! USA! USA!”
Kerley tore through the line to finish in 9.86 seconds, beating both seeded Marvin Bracy and 2021 U.S. champion Trayvon Bromell by less than 0.02 seconds. The difference between second and third was 0.002.
It was the first American winner at the world meet since Carl Lewis, Leroy Burrell and Dennis Mitchell won gold-silver-bronze medals in Tokyo in 1991.
“It’s amazing,” said Burrell, who was in attendance. “And honestly, I wouldn’t expect any less from the band. This is one of the best groups of American sprinters we’ve had in years.”
That all-American burst of speed came moments after the jets announced the night’s main event by blazing over Hayward Stadium, the still-inviting space on the University of Oregon campus that has been renovated to bring the championship to the United States for the first time.
The race itself brought back memories of the time when the USA dominated the track in the same way that Jamaica and Usain Bolt did for almost a decade starting in 2008. Some would call it the good old days – Lewis was the star, Burrell and a few others certainly filled the stands. It was also the time of a dark racing superstar and an era marked by doping.
This one felt more like a bunch of comeback stories and “I told you so.”
“It’s amazing to be around the big ones,” Kerley said. “They did it in ’91, and now we did it in ’22.”
Kerley, a 27-year-old Texan, came into Eugene as the favorite — the only sprinter to break 9.8 seconds this year. His reward is a title in an event he only started putting time into before last year’s Olympics.
In an interview on former U.S. sprinter Rae Edwards’ webcast earlier this year, Kerley explained the reason for the shift in distance.
“At the end of the day, nobody really comes to watch anything other than ‘World’s Fastest Man,'” he said. “So if you ask me what I want to be, I want to be the fastest man in the world.”
Now he is – and also part of the fastest team in the world.
The runner-up, Bracy, was a scholarship football player who left Florida State to pursue a career in college, then returned to the field for a couple of failed attempts in the NFL. He now has a silver medal.
“I went to play football for three years; obviously that didn’t work out,” Bracy said. “So to come back and do this means everything.”
Bromell was the favorite at the Olympics last year, but did not make it to the finals. He’s been a relatively forgotten man at these worlds, and starting on the outside in Lane 8 certainly didn’t help him in the finals.
“A lot of people didn’t expect us to do it, obviously with what happened to me in Tokyo,” said Bromell, who almost quit the sport a few years ago due to an Achilles injury. “So we just hope we gained some respect tonight.”
Final respect may come next weekend. All those medals are sure to raise expectations for next weekend’s 4×100 relay, an event in which the U.S. has had notorious and long-standing problems.
Kerley will be the leader of this team. He finished second at the Olympics last year behind Italy’s Marcello Jacobs, who came from nowhere to win gold in Tokyo.
But a gluteal muscle and then an abductor muscle have bothered the Italian this season, and when “DNS” appeared next to his name in the semi-final early in the evening – he didn’t start – the field began to clear.
It opened up even more when Canadian Olympic bronze medalist Andre De Grasse, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 just 2 1/2 weeks ago, finished fifth in the same run.
That left four Americans — defending world champion Christian Coleman was second — in the final eight for only the second time (2015 was the second) in the world. All have been in the top nine in the world this season, with only sixth-ranked Akani Simbine of South Africa posing as a threat.
Coleman started fast but finished sixth.
Still, there was less doubt about the sweep than the order. Fourth-placed Oblique Seville of Jamaica was 0.09 seconds behind the medalists.
Kerley overcame the fourth-slowest start but continued to close. He was on lane 4, one lane inside Bracy, who had a body-length advantage over his taller opponent with about 40 meters to go. Kerley closed in and drove through the line while Bracy leaned in at the finish line. Bromell was also in the photo finish.
“Being on Lane 8, it was hard to see where everyone was,” Bromell said.
He ended up less than a step behind Kerley. The champion ran through the finish line and into the first turn. It took about 20 seconds to get the result. He raised his hands as it happened, and then – in a new twist in these worlds – the leader ran off and hung the gold medal around his neck. He took it off and held it in his left hand as he completed his victory lap around the rest of the oval – his old 400 meters never seemed so sweet.
Just minutes earlier, Chase Ealey won America’s first gold medal of the meet – in the women’s shot put.
Other champions were Wang Jianan of China in the men’s long jump, Pawel Fajdek of Poland in the hammer throw (his fifth world title) and Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia in the women’s 10,000. Sifan Hassan, who won medals in the 1500, 5000 and 10,000 last year in Tokyo, finished fourth in that race.
