The world 100m champion and keen gardener on fighting talk, speaking up and finding moments of peace

Fred Kerley wants to talk about carrots. We are discussing one of the world 100m champions favourite pastimes outside of winding up sprint rival Marcell Jacobs, that is.

If hes not on the track or in the gym, chances are you will find the Texan in the garden of his Florida home, tending to his crops.

For a man who admits his mind is forever on go, the simple pleasure of putting on some music and taking a quiet moment to help his plants grow is an important release. He does acknowledge there are parallels with the day job, though.

Gardening is peace and it takes patience, says Kerley. You need that in track and field, too. Youve got to have patience through the phases of gardening, just like youve got to be patient in track and field. Everything dont come overnight. If you plant something, its not going to grow right away.

Youve got to know how to produce your thing, how to water your plants, know when to lift your head, know when to do certain things, know when the pick the leaves. Youve got to be mentally in the thing. I feel like everybody should do it.

There is one crop which has brought particular satisfaction.

Carrots take time, so when the carrots came back I was like, Ah, this is a nice one, adds Kerley. You can see the beans and the other stuff that comes up but the carrots grow under the ground so you dont know how big they are until you dig them up. So when they came out big Im like, okay!

It gets my mind off certain things in life. When I think too much about how I actually grew up just go to the garden, listen to music and just enjoy myself.

Kerley knows more than most just how precious finding these pockets of happiness can be. It was in the immediate aftermath of his 100m world title-winning performance in Oregon that the 28-year-old spoke in some depth about how challenging his upbringing had been. With his father in jail and his mother absent, Kerley was adopted by his Aunt Virginia who raised him and his four siblings along with eight of her own.

There were 13 of us in one bedroom. We were on the pallet, he said last summer. Each of those children was encouraged to dream big, though. At the end of the day, we all had fun, we enjoyed ourselves and are doing great things right now, Kerley added.

That feeling of a happy ending is enhanced further by the fact that he now speaks with his parents regularly and that, by telling his own story, he has been able to help others.

I feel like a lot more people approached me because a lot of people been in the same position and are still in the position [I was in], he says. We dont know who we touch until we actually open our mouths. A lot of athletes have the same stories as me but they dont know how to push it or they dont know how to say it. To tell you the truth, its traumatising just to open up sometimes because you dont know what people are going to say or how they are going to react.

The reaction has been very positive. More kids and more young adults messaged me on Instagram. I probably cant get to all of them, but I try to get to most of them.

I know a lot of kids that have been in my situation are still going through my situation. If I can open up people to knowledge, to understand that they are not alone and they got a person they can look up to its not only the younger generation, the older generations have still been going through the same situation that I went through.

If I can have the opportunity to motivate them that somebody of stature has been through the same thing, it will make them push better in life and say if he can do it, I can do it.

Truthfully, not many people can do what Kerley does on the athletics track. He is one of those rare athletes who is world class across a range of events and is in a three-man club along with Wayde van Niekerk and Michael Norman to have run 100m in under 10 seconds, 200m in under 20 and 400m in under 44.

Having been primarily a 400m runner who took individual bronze and 4x400m gold at the 2019 World Championships, he has come down the distances to great effect all because of sore ankles at the 2021 US Olympic trials.

He narrowly lost out to Jacobs in 100m final in Tokyo a defeat which continues to irk him but then, in the Italians absence led an American clean sweep of the 100m at last summers World Championships in Oregon, the first time that had been done in the mens event since 1991.

The plan is to conquer the world again, this time in Budapest come August over both 100m and 200m. The first one, they said, is the easiest one, says Kerley. The next ones the hardest.

This time he would like to do it with Jacobs at full strength. The Olympic champion was hampered for much of last year through injury and the fighting talk between he and Kerley over social media has been a big feature of the early season. At the time of writing, the two had yet to face each other in 2023, but Kerley has been enjoying the exchanges.

Truthfully, I enjoy talking s**t to other people, grins the American. Anybody that knows me, [will tell you] thats me on a daily basis. Track and field brings a different edge out of me and Im a very competitive person so its easy for me to do that I can just keep going all day, every day. The competitive side of me comes out and I can bring fire right back.

Those fans are flamed, too, by Olympic heartache. Kerley is a big man and a hugely imposing presence. He threw all of his 6ft 3in frame at the line but came up 0.04 of a second short as Jacobs clocked 9.80 and the American had to settle for silver with 9.84.

I was there, he says. What went wrong? It fuels me week in, week out. Where did I mess up? Where can I improve? Where can I strengthen myself up? Going into last year, I said to myself what happened at the Olympics aint going to happen again.

Kerley is aware how short a sprinters career can be, which is why he so badly wants to seize the opportunities which will come this summer and then at the Paris Olympics next year. Legacy is on his mind, as are medals and records.

I think that everything is in reach, he says when asked about the fabled 100m and 200m world records of 9.58 and 19.19 set by Usain Bolt. Its all about what can that person do on that day? Who can stay healthy for the longest?

Fred Kerley takes the win in Morocco

The world 100m champion started slowly but was supreme in the last 50m and clocks 9.94 (0.1)

He sees off a field which included Akani Simbine, Ferdinand Omanyala, Letsile Tebogo, Trayvon Bromell and Yohan Blake #RabatDL pic.twitter.com/DlAwQwQ7zr

AW (@AthleticsWeekly) May 28, 2023

He wont be rushed, though. Step by step is his preferred modus operandi.

Im always in the moment, he says. I am truly enjoying my journey, from where I started to now, and competing is something that I love to do no matter what it is. Every time I step on the track, all the noise dont matter. Its all about me on that line from the start to the finish and Ive got to be mentally in there.

He adds: Success dont come easy and youve got to continue to work for it. The minute you let up, somebody else is going to come in. I like working to the next level. I havent reflected and I think, when my career is done, thats when Ill celebrate. Right now, Im just enjoying the journey of being a competitive person.

But once I leave the track then track and field is out the window. Once I leave that gate, its on to the real life stuff.

And the garden. There will always be his garden.