The path of sprinter Kenny Bednarek has been far from easy or conventional. Plenty of uphill climbs, too.
His experiences, though — foster care, being adopted, going the community college route, constantly overshadowed — has only added power to his alter ego, “Kung Fu Kenny.” That version of him emerges when he steps on the track and slips on his signature headband.
That version of him looks at his two Olympic silver medals in two ways — reminders, yes, of the success he's had, but a motivator for the success still yet to achieve.
This season, he’s sharpened his burst out of the starting blocks and took his nutrition to another level in an effort to turn silver finishes into gold. That starts possibly later this season at world championships in Tokyo and down the road at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“I know I have the capability of being a champion,” said Bednarek, who races this weekend in Kingston, Jamaica, at the inaugural event of Grand Slam Track, a new professional league. “I’ve always just been hungry.”
Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he and his fraternal twin brother, Ian, were adopted out of foster care at 4 years old by Mary Ann Bednarek, who'd already taken in two girls. The family moved to Rice Lake in northwest Wisconsin when he was 12.
“I had a lot of issues when I was a kid,” the 26-year-old Kenny Bednarek explained. “My mom took so much time to help me become the person I am today. I mean, without her love, care and support, I don’t know where I would be.
“I might not be ‘Kung Fu Kenny.' I might be somewhere stranded. She’s the big reason why I'm here today.”
Track, too. Because on the track, Bednarek could let his mind wander — to the places his feet might one day take him.
“Track was just the gateway that let me feel free,” explained Bednarek, who also played football. “It was just me against the clock."
Bednarek didn’t go to a big-time track powerhouse out of high school. Instead, he spent a season at Indian Hills Community College in Iowa.
That one season, though, showed Bednarek's vast potential. He won 200 and 400 national titles at the 2019 NJCAA DI Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
Still, he's been largely overlooked in a crowded field of high-profile sprinters that includes Americans standouts Noah Lyles, Fred Kerley and Erriyon Knighton, along with Andre De Grasse of Canada and Botswana's Letsile Tebogo.
Playing second-fiddle used to bother Bednarek and especially his alter ego, “Kung Fu Kenny.”
“I had a really big chip on my shoulder,” he said. “It was annoying.”
Winning medals solved that. Maybe not always the favorite in a race, Bednarek always found a way to be in the mix.
Like at the Tokyo Games in 2021, when he finished runner-up to De Grasse in the 200 meters. Or a year later at world championships when he took silver behind Lyles. At the Paris Games last summer, he won another silver in the 200 behind Tebogo.
Last summer's medal remains special because his mom was watching in the stands. She was so happy for him, crying tears of joy, as they embraced after the race.
“Just to be able to shine bright and have my mom witness that, it meant a lot," he said.
These days, he’s working out in Winter Garden, Florida, under coach Dennis Mitchell. His training group includes Sha’Carri Richardson and Christian Coleman.
“We just have this iron-sharpens-iron mentality," said Bednarek, who's sponsored by Nike. “We’re all making each other better.”
His top task this spring is sharpening his starts out of blocks.
“If I can get that down, I feel like nobody is going to be able to beat me,” said Bednarek, whose top time in the 200 is 19.57 seconds. “I’m always trying to add something that makes me 1% better.”
For his dedication to nutrition — he's eliminated gluten — and overall health, he credits Sharmila Nicollet, a professional golfer from India who he's been dating since 2020.
“I used to think, 'Oh, I can sleep whenever I want, play video games whenever I want, and I’ll be fine,’” Bednarek recounted. “She opened my eyes. It was like, ‘OK, this is how you become an Olympian and a medalist. This is what you've got to do.’"
Bednarek is among the runners of all distances — and hurdlers — taking part this weekend in Grand Slam Track, which was founded by Hall of Famer Michael Johnson. The new league includes stops in Kingston, Miami (May 2-4), Philadelphia (May 30-June 1) and Los Angeles (June 27-29). In Kingston, Bednarek will face Kerley & Co. in the 100 on Friday and again in the 200 on Saturday.
“It’s an incredible opportunity just to be able to represent this league,” Bednarek said. “It’s all about speed, personalities and telling great stories.”
Like his.
One question he constantly receives: What's the story behind his alter-ego “Kung Fu Kenny?” Bednarek said it really stems from his love of anime. His favorite character is Naruto, a young ninja who's seeking recognition.
“He’s a very persistent character and doesn’t give up no matter what,” Bednarek explained. “I kind of resonate with that. Whatever you want to achieve, it will not come to you — you have to work for it. You have to go get it.”
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FILE - Kenneth Bednarek, of the United States, poses after winning the silver medal in the men's 200 meters final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File)
FILE - Kenneth Bednarek, of the United States, looks back after winning a heat in the men's 100-meter race at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File)
U.S. President Donald Trump wants to own Greenland. He has repeatedly said the United States must take control of the strategically located and mineral-rich island, which is a semiautonomous region that's part of NATO ally Denmark.
Officials from Denmark, Greenland and the United States met Thursday in Washington and will meet again next week to discuss a renewed push by the White House, which is considering a range of options, including using military force, to acquire the island.
Trump said Friday he is going to do “something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”
If it's not done “the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way," he said without elaborating what that could entail. In an interview Thursday, he told The New York Times that he wants to own Greenland because “ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO, and Greenlanders say they don't want to become part of the U.S.
This is a look at some of the ways the U.S. could take control of Greenland and the potential challenges.
Trump and his officials have indicated they want to control Greenland to enhance American security and explore business and mining deals. But Imran Bayoumi, an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, said the sudden focus on Greenland is also the result of decades of neglect by several U.S. presidents towards Washington's position in the Arctic.
The current fixation is partly down to “the realization we need to increase our presence in the Arctic, and we don’t yet have the right strategy or vision to do so,” he said.
If the U.S. took control of Greenland by force, it would plunge NATO into a crisis, possibly an existential one.
While Greenland is the largest island in the world, it has a population of around 57,000 and doesn't have its own military. Defense is provided by Denmark, whose military is dwarfed by that of the U.S.
It's unclear how the remaining members of NATO would respond if the U.S. decided to forcibly take control of the island or if they would come to Denmark's aid.
“If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” Frederiksen has said.
Trump said he needs control of the island to guarantee American security, citing the threat from Russian and Chinese ships in the region, but “it's not true” said Lin Mortensgaard, an expert on the international politics of the Arctic at the Danish Institute for International Studies, or DIIS.
While there are probably Russian submarines — as there are across the Arctic region — there are no surface vessels, Mortensgaard said. China has research vessels in the Central Arctic Ocean, and while the Chinese and Russian militaries have done joint military exercises in the Arctic, they have taken place closer to Alaska, she said.
Bayoumi, of the Atlantic Council, said he doubted Trump would take control of Greenland by force because it’s unpopular with both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, and would likely “fundamentally alter” U.S. relationships with allies worldwide.
The U.S. already has access to Greenland under a 1951 defense agreement, and Denmark and Greenland would be “quite happy” to accommodate a beefed up American military presence, Mortensgaard said.
For that reason, “blowing up the NATO alliance” for something Trump has already, doesn’t make sense, said Ulrik Pram Gad, an expert on Greenland at DIIS.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a select group of U.S. lawmakers this week that it was the Republican administration’s intention to eventually purchase Greenland, as opposed to using military force. Danish and Greenlandic officials have previously said the island isn't for sale.
It's not clear how much buying the island could cost, or if the U.S. would be buying it from Denmark or Greenland.
Washington also could boost its military presence in Greenland “through cooperation and diplomacy,” without taking it over, Bayoumi said.
One option could be for the U.S. to get a veto over security decisions made by the Greenlandic government, as it has in islands in the Pacific Ocean, Gad said.
Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands have a Compact of Free Association, or COFA, with the U.S.
That would give Washington the right to operate military bases and make decisions about the islands’ security in exchange for U.S. security guarantees and around $7 billion of yearly economic assistance, according to the Congressional Research Service.
It's not clear how much that would improve upon Washington's current security strategy. The U.S. already operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, and can bring as many troops as it wants under existing agreements.
Greenlandic politician Aaja Chemnitz told The Associated Press that Greenlanders want more rights, including independence, but don't want to become part of the U.S.
Gad suggested influence operations to persuade Greenlanders to join the U.S. would likely fail. He said that is because the community on the island is small and the language is “inaccessible.”
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen summoned the top U.S. official in Denmark in August to complain that “foreign actors” were seeking to influence the country’s future. Danish media reported that at least three people with connections to Trump carried out covert influence operations in Greenland.
Even if the U.S. managed to take control of Greenland, it would likely come with a large bill, Gad said. That’s because Greenlanders currently have Danish citizenship and access to the Danish welfare system, including free health care and schooling.
To match that, “Trump would have to build a welfare state for Greenlanders that he doesn’t want for his own citizens,” Gad said.
Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations to 200 at the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest of the island, Rasmussen said last year. The base supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance told Fox News on Thursday that Denmark has neglected its missile defense obligations in Greenland, but Mortensgaard said that it makes “little sense to criticize Denmark,” because the main reason why the U.S. operates the Pituffik base in the north of the island is to provide early detection of missiles.
The best outcome for Denmark would be to update the defense agreement, which allows the U.S. to have a military presence on the island and have Trump sign it with a “gold-plated signature,” Gad said.
But he suggested that's unlikely because Greenland is “handy” to the U.S president.
When Trump wants to change the news agenda — including distracting from domestic political problems — “he can just say the word ‘Greenland' and this starts all over again," Gad said.
CORRECT THE ORDER OF SPEAKERS, FILE - Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, right, and Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, left, speak on April 27, 2025, in Marienborg, Denmark. (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, File)
FILE - Danish military forces participate in an exercise with hundreds of troops from several European NATO members in the Arctic Ocean in Nuuk, Greenland, Sept. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
President Donald Trump listens as he was speaking with reporters while in flight on Air Force One, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, as returning to Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen arrives for a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Tuesday, Jan.6, 2026. (Yoan Valat, Pool photo via AP)
FILE - A plane carrying Donald Trump Jr. lands in Nuuk, Greenland, Jan. 7, 2025. (Emil Stach/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, file)
