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Michael Johnson's Grand Slam Track league will take center stage between April 4-8 at the National Stadium, Kingston. The Kingston event will be followed up by events in Miami, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles across the 2025 season.
Each stop of the league will have six race groups, for both male and female athletes, and each group will have two different races under its belt. The groups include short sprints (100m and 200m), short hurdles (100m hurdles for women's and 100m hurdles for men's, 100m flat), short distance (800m and 1500m), long sprints (200m and 400m), long hurdles (400m hurdles and 400m flat), and long-distance (3000m and 5000m).
The participants in these races will consist of four annually-contracted athletes of Grand Slam Track who will be seen in all four events of the league, such as Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Gabby Thomas, Josh Kerr, etc. They will be challenged by four challengers, who will be selected based on their rankings and performances for every stop.
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For both races of their respective race groups, the athletes will be awarded points based on their finish positions in the race. The first-position holders will earn 12 points, with the points decreasing to 8,6,5,4,3,2,1 for the next seven positions. After assessing the points of both races, the athlete with the most points will be crowned as the Grand Slam champion of that respective race group.
Notably, the male and female athletes (across all the race groups) with the most points at the end of the four GST events in the season will receive the title of "Racer of the Year."
The GST has a total prize pool of $12.6 million with the champions of a race group in a slam event will earn USD 100,000 as prize money, with the amount dropping down to $50,000, $30,000, $25,000, $20,000, $15,000, $12,000, and $10,000 for the next seven position holders.
Michael Johnson opens up about giving a 'home' to the fastest track athletes through the Grand Slam Track
Michael Johnson recently shared his thoughts on delivering a home for the fastest track athletes through the Grand Slam Track League. During a conversation with Rich Eisen on YouTube on March 25, Johnson said track and field doesn't have a proper event or home for the athletes that can deliver an Olympic-like experience.
Johnson also mentioned that people love to know the personalities and stories of the athletes during the Olympics, but other track events don't serve a similar package to the fans, which Grand Slam Track aims to bridge (via The Rich Eisen Show, 1:12 onwards):
"We just haven't had a home for the fastest athletes to deliver that and package it in a way that is familiar to people from what they see during the Olympics, because you've got millions of people watching during the Olympics, they love it, they enjoy it... People get to know who these athletes are but then they don't see that, they would love to, so that's what we are delivering on."
Johnson also remarked that Grand Slam Track is targetting to provide the best competition among the athletes as well as focus on storytelling.
