Kenny Bednarek isn’t as flashy as some runners, but his Olympic medals, and a vast collection of anime-themed headbands, make him stand out.
Kenny Bednarek, a two-time Olympic medalist, has a vast collection of colorful headbands that he wears to help himself get ready for races. Credit. Christian Petersen/Getty Images
Reporting from Eugene, Ore., and Paris
As a world-class sprinter, Kenny Bednarek lacks the sort of brash persona typically associated with his chosen profession. Sprinters tend to be loud. They generally carry themselves with a brand of confidence that borders on arrogance. They are, in other words, nearly impossible to miss.
But even now, with two Olympic medals in his possession, Mr. Bednarek is a bit on the quiet side — reserved, even, especially when compared with the likes of Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson, who are megaphones personified.
There is one way, though, in which Mr. Bednarek has managed to break through the noise and make his presence felt: he routinely transforms into his headband-wearing alter ego, Kung Fu Kenny.
“Just to express myself and do something to stand out as my own person,” he said of the headbands he wears for races, which help him get into character. “Most people, when they’re watching the race, they’re going to know exactly who that is when the gun goes off.”
Throughout his summer track and field season, which concluded on Saturday with a win in the 200 meters at the prestigious Diamond League final in Brussels, Mr. Bednarek wore a variety of colorful headbands that knot in the back.
There were headbands based on his favorite characters from Japanese anime. Headbands featuring phrases like “Beast Mode” and “Curve Conqueror,” a nod to his expertise at exploding around the turn toward the finish line.
Headbands with images of cheetahs in full flight. And even headbands with bleeding eyeballs.
“I like it when people are like, ‘Hey, I wonder what he’s going to have on next,’” Mr. Bednarek said.
Like many other athletes, Mr. Bednarek is sponsored by Nike, which supplies his uniforms. And like most major apparel brands, Nike generally provides its athletes with the same design template — or, at most, a couple of options — for an entire season. As a result, the sprinters can tend to blend together on the start line.
“You look at the lineup: Nike, Nike, Nike,” he said. “All you see are the same colors.”
And while Mr. Bednarek, 25, has sought to separate himself by wearing colorful headbands for several years, he elevated his game in March when he enlisted the help of Juan Ortiz, an illustrator and graphic designer from Modesto, Calif., who runs his own shop called Of the Dead Designs.
Mr. Bednarek’s headbands are created by Juan Ortiz, an illustrator who has worked with heavy metal bands and professional wrestlers. Credit. Juan Ortiz
Mr. Ortiz, 34, has done a lot work with heavy metal bands and professional wrestling circuits, and he connected with Mr. Bednarek through DeQuincy Carter, a pro wrestler who goes by the stage name Mysterious Q. Mr. Carter’s girlfriend is on Mr. Bednarek’s management team and, after seeing some of the graphics that Mr. Ortiz designed for Mr. Carter’s fan merchandise and social media pages, she referred him to Mr. Bednarek, who had been looking for an artist who could do similar collaborations with him.
Mr. Ortiz, by his own admission, knew very little about track and field. He had to look up his new client online, which is when he learned that Mr. Bednarek was one of the fastest humans on the planet, having won the silver medal in the men’s 200 meters at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. But he and Mr. Bednarek quickly found common ground.
“Once he told me, ‘Oh, I like anime,’ that’s when it all kind of started snowballing,” Mr. Ortiz said. “That’s when I knew that we could definitely make this work.”
Mr. Ortiz and Mr. Bednarek went all out in June at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials, where Mr. Bednarek competed in the 100- and 200-meter races — and brought six different headbands with him. The idea was to craft a narrative arc, using his headbands, through the three rounds of each event.
“It was a level-up kind of thing,” Mr. Bednarek said. “So by the time I hit the finals, I’d be in my ultimate form.”
For the 200, Mr. Bednarek wore a series of headbands that he said “paid homage” to Naruto Uzumaki, a character from the Japanese anime television series based on Masashi Kishimoto’s manga series “Naruto.” Naruto is a ninja who is ridiculed and shunned as a young boy — “He’s a nobody,” Mr. Bednarek said — but aspires to become a village leader. (Spoiler alert: Naruto succeeds in the end.)
“Everybody loves him, respects him,” Mr. Bednarek said.
“It’s like me putting my character on,” Mr. Bednarek said of his headbands. “I think if I didn’t run with one, I’d feel a little naked. My forehead would feel exposed.”Credit...Clockwise from top left, Patrick Smith/Getty Images; Christian Petersen/Getty Images; Andy Lyons/Getty Images; Steph Chambers/Getty Images
At the trials, it was easy to draw some thematic parallels to Mr. Bednarek’s own life. Adopted out of foster care with his twin brother, Ian, when he was 4, Mr. Bednarek grew up in Rice Lake, Wis. And while he has acknowledged dealing with anger issues as a child, his mother, Mary Ann Bednarek, “helped me become a better person,” he said in an episode of his YouTube docuseries, “Road to Gold.”
“I like anime where you have somebody that’s an underdog,” Mr. Bednarek said in an interview, “and goes through some stuff and ends up coming out on top.”
For the final of the 200, Mr. Bednarek’s headband was fire red, a nod to “the demon inside of Naruto who sacrifices himself so he can basically go 100 percent power,” Mr. Ortiz explained.
Perhaps it worked: Mr. Bednarek finished second behind Mr. Lyles to earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. He also qualified for the team in the 100 after cycling through a series of headbands that were based on Sasuke Uchiha, another ninja from the “Naruto” series who makes it his mission to avenge the slaughter of his clan.
“Naruto,” Mr. Bednarek said, “was just so impactful for me as a kid.”
And Mr. Ortiz was thrilled to watch Mr. Bednarek race on television.
“I went to my parents’ house to kind of show them, ‘Hey, that’s my work!’” he recalled.
In Paris, where Mr. Bednarek was limited to wearing plain white headbands because of Olympic rules restricting race attire, he repeated as the silver medalist in the 200.
Mr. Bednarek does not wear headbands in training. He is based in the Orlando, Fla., area, so there are practical concerns. (“It’s too hot out there,” he said.) Besides, he said, he likes to save something special for meets.
“It’s like me putting my character on,” he said of his headbands. “I think if I didn’t run with one, I’d feel a little naked. My forehead would feel exposed.”
And Mr. Bednarek has experienced only one wardrobe malfunction to date. At an early-season meet in Florida, his headband flew away as he bolted down the homestretch of a 200-meter race. He still managed to win.
“Now,” Mr. Bednarek said, “I make sure to double knot it every single time.”
On Saturday, Mr. Bednarek lined up for the Diamond League finalin a colorful headband that evoked the character All Might from “My Hero Academia,” a manga series by Kōhei Horikoshi. All Might is known for a phrase — “Go beyond, plus ultra!” — that seems self-explanatory.
“Felt it was the best way to end his season,” Mr. Ortiz said.
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