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≡ GRAND SLAM TRACK ≡
The 19th Century American showman P.T. Barnum is often quoted as having said “There’s no such thing as bad publicity” and the Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde wrote “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about,” in his 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Grey.
Michael Johnson is clearly getting people to talk about his new track & field project, Grand Slam Track, a four-meet program in 2025 that will debut at Jamaica’s National Stadium in Kingston on 4-6 April.
Each meet will be a three-day program with only track events for men and women – 100-200-400-800-1,500-5,000 m and the 100/110 m and 400 m hurdles, with each athlete competing in two events, and $12.6 million in prize money in the first season.
Johnson, the iconic Atlanta 1996 gold medalist in the Olympic 200 m and 400 m, told the BBC in an interview last month:
“Grand Slam Track is track, that is what we’re doing. I am going to save what I think I can save; I think I can save track, I don’t think I can save track and field.
“Putting the two together works at the Olympics and World Championships, but I’m not sure it works when you’re trying to create a professional sport outside of those global competitions.”
Well, that got tongues wagging, including Paris Olympic women’s long jump champion Tara Davis-Woodhall and husband, Paris Paralympic men’s 400 m T62 champion Hunter Woodhall, who posted a minute video ripping Johnson, including:
● Tara Davis-Woodhall: “About my sport, it doesn’t need saving, at all. It’s actually, Michael, you’re ruining the sport if you’re trying to save just track.
“[It’s] Track and field for a reason. The field events actually do have a lot of impact on this sport. Hi, if you can’t tell [pointing to herself as a field-event performer].
“We don’t need your saving. You’re long gone, your time has passed. If you wanted to change the sport, you have changed it a long time ago. Instead, you were skipping out of the sport.”
● Hunter Woodhall: “Stop coming back and being so self-important and just saying wild things to try and get a rise out of people, because no one cares, to be honest, at all. And we’re doing just fine. We’re doing great.
“I don’t know if you saw the Olympics. They were great!”
Tara Davis-Woodhall added, “But you weren’t there.”
Observed: It’s worth noting, for the sake of accuracy, that (1) Johnson was in Paris, as a BBC commentator as he has been since 2001, and (2) let’s observe that both Davis-Woodhall and Woodhall were born in 1999, three years after the Atlanta Games Olympic Games, and a year before Johnson retired after the 2000 season, when he won the Sydney men’s 400 m.
As for Woodhall’s saying Johnson’s time has passed, it’s worth asking who else is raising money to stage high-end meets and trying to raise interest in the sport. Actors are great, but they need plays, films and shows to star in and that’s what Johnson and his fellow investors are trying to create. It’s badly needed, but bitterness on the part of field-event performers is completely understandable.
And that’s what we get on the video.
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On the other side of the equation is Noah Lyles, the three-event World Champion in 2023 and the Olympic men’s 100 m champ in Paris in 2024.
He was on an 18-minute podcast with LetsRun.com’s Jonathan Gault and Weldon Johnson, and was asked about his participation in Grand Slam Track:
“It’s still in the same position it has been all year. Until I see a TV sponsor, I can’t make a decision.
“Because, I’m not gaining anything, I should say. For a lot of athletes it’s a great opportunity, it’s a really great opportunity. And I think they are in a position where they can do a lot of different, nuanced things.
“Unfortunately for me, being the Olympic champion, I’ve already come in with a lot of accolades and a lot of things where I don’t need monetary value, but I really need marketing value. And if a tree falls in the woods … did it make a sound?
“So if I race and it’s not seen, where the marketing for it?
“My first step is I have to make sure that whatever I do is seen.”
But Lyles noted that for many athletes, the Grand Slam Track program is a potential game-changer:
“If they handle it right, it has the potential to rock a lot of shoe contracts, because if these athletes are making more money than their shoe contracts, then they get to go back to their sponsors say, ‘hey, you know, I don’t really need you any more, because I can run Grand Slam Track and make more money and then decide what brand I want to wear because I can just go buy it.’
“That’s a very powerful position to be in and it really sets the bar and makes a difference on what we can do.”
Lyles was also asked about where the sport is overall and he reiterated his concerns:
“I don’t think the sport wants to change, almost, they’re very content where they are. And now I have to make the decision. Do I go off on my lonesome and do my thing and hope that maybe a few athletes come along, and we make our own identity or do I just stay where it is and just say, ‘Hey, I’ll just rack up as many medals as possible and stay where track is.’
“I think a lot of people already know the answer to that. I’m not going to stay where I am. I’m always going to try and push the envelope, but of course I got to keep the main thing, the main thing.”
Lyles indicated that a race with Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill is becoming more and more of a possibility, for sometime in 2025. He said he will be concentrating more on the 100 m in 2025, but still has his eyes on the Olympic 200 m title in Los Angeles in 2028.
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