4-time Olympic champion Michael Johnson has introduced the launch of Grand Slam Observe (GST), knowledgeable monitor league designed to deliver collectively the world’s greatest sprinters and distance runners for 4 marquee meets in 2025, just like tennis and golf. This progressive league goals to raise the game by offering a singular platform for the world’s greatest athletes to compete and shine.
“We’re excited to launch this new platform for the planet’s best racers on this sport all of us love,” Johnson mentioned in a press launch. “We’re revolutionizing the monitor panorama, permitting our sport to stay on the forefront of the sporting world year-round, and pushing our famous person racers to interrupt new floor of their private storytelling, aggressive success, and marketability. Grand Slam Observe goes to take our sport to new heights, and we would like you to come back alongside for the journey.”
The Grand Slam Observe league additionally made an enormous splash by asserting their first athlete, 400m hurdles Olympic champion and world file holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Within the press launch, Mclaughlin-Levrone mentioned she’s honoured to be the primary athlete in Grand Slam Observe. “Michael’s imaginative and prescient is obvious, and he’s precisely the chief this sport wants to interrupt new floor. I’m thrilled to be part of this league and stay up for all the pieces we’ve got coming sooner or later. I firmly consider that that is the step ahead that monitor must take it to a different stage.”
What it is advisable to learn about Grand Slam Observe
The league will start subsequent yr, and can observe an analogous construction to skilled golf and tennis, that includes a sequence of 4 main occasions in its inaugural season. One occasion will probably be in Los Angeles (the house of the 2028 Olympics), one other American metropolis, and two extra abroad (which haven’t but been introduced). The league will characteristic 96 of the world’s prime monitor athletes, divided into two teams: 48 racers and 48 challengers. There are six occasion classes at every slam, with athletes having to do two races, guaranteeing a various vary of competitors. One other huge change would be the racing format: this league goals to ship a pure racing expertise by eliminating rabbits (pace-setters) and tempo lights. Athletes will compete with out bibs, to reinforce recognition and branding.
Every slam will supply a considerable prize of $100,000 to the winner, with money awards extending right down to eighth place. Over its first season, the league will distribute $12.6 million in prize cash.
The imaginative and prescient
Johnson has lengthy criticized the dearth of marquee head-to-head matchups in monitor and discipline on account of inadequate monetary incentives. “It’s offering the followers and the athletes what they’ve been asking for,” Johnson mentioned. “I feel there’s an actual alternative right here. They’re pissed off at an all-time stage with the game, on the elite stage, the way in which it’s been over the past couple of years the place they’re not compensated and acknowledged for his or her great expertise.”
The Grand Slam Observe league plans to signal 48 athletes, often known as “GST Racers,” to contracts, and use look charges to deliver one other 48 athletes, “GST Challengers,” to every meet. Athletes will compete in classes comparable to a short-sprint group working 100 and 200 metres over a weekend, for prime prizes and elevated visibility.
The league has secured greater than $30 million in monetary commitments and funding from Winners Alliance, the business arm of the Skilled Tennis Gamers Affiliation (PTPA) co-founded by tennis legend Novak Djokovic. The league’s title, Grand Slam Observe, goals to evoke the status of tennis and golf’s main tournaments, providing a standout sequence of occasions amid the yearly monitor and discipline schedule.
Although Johnson has lengthy been essential of monitor’s international administration, he sees his league as a disruptor and enhancer of the game. Latest developments in monitor and discipline, comparable to World Athletics’ plan to award $50,000 to Olympic gold medalists and the launch of the Final Championship in 2026, point out a rising recognition of athletes’ worth.
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Johnson, who stays deeply concerned within the sport as a BBC analyst, believes now’s the proper time to launch GST. “I’m motivated by the truth that that is the opportune time to do it,” he mentioned. “The world is searching for one thing like this in order that we are able to step into that void.”
