Top-tier track is back, and it’s going to be better than ever. At least Michael Johnson believes it will be.
The inaugural season of the new Grand Slam Track league that the U.S. sprinting legend is spearheading gets underway April 4-6 in Kingston, Jamaica, with many of the world’s top sprinters, hurdlers, and middle distance runners competing for one of the biggest prize purses in the history of the sport.
Here’s everything you need to know about Grand Slam Track, including a list of competitors, how it works, what’s at stake, and how to watch it.
How to watch Grand Slam Track
Grand Slam Track Jamaica will be broadcast in the U.S. on Peacock ($7.99 per month) and the CW Network.
Here’s the daily TV schedule for the Kingston Grand Slam meet.
- Friday, April 4—Peacock from 6-9 p.m. ET
- Saturday, April 5—Peacock and CW from 6-9 p.m. ET
- Sunday, April 6—Peacock and CW from 3-6 p.m. ET
The meet will be broadcast live in 189 countries and territories.
What is Grand Slam Track?
Grand Slam Track is a new series of professional track meets (aka “Slams”) aimed at promoting head-to-head competition, creating rivalries, and creating more exposure for athletes. It has been spearheaded by Johnson, who was a four-time Olympic gold medalist for the U.S. and an eight-time world champion between 1991 and 2000. After this weekend’s meet in Kingston, additional Grand Slam meets will be held May 2-4 in Miami, May 30-June 1 in Philadelphia, and June 27-29 in Los Angeles.
Each three-day meet will feature 24 men’s and women’s elite-level “Racers” competing against 24 men’s and women’s “Challengers” in 24 events (12 men’s events, 12 women’s events). Each athlete will compete in the two events in their slam group—short sprints (100 meters, 200 meters), long sprints (200 meters, 400 meters), short hurdles (100-meter hurdles for women or 110-meter hurdles for men, 100 meters), long hurdles (400-meter hurdles, 400 meters), short distance (800 meters, 1500 meters), and long distance (3,000 meters, 5,000 meters). However none of the four Grand Slam Track meets of the inaugural season will include any of the sport’s nine traditional field event competitions or any relays.
Grand Slam Track will award a total of $12.6 million in prize money this year spread it among each of the eight competitors in every race (in addition to base compensation paid to Racers and appearance fees paid to Challengers). The winner of each Slam Group in every meet will pocket $100,000 in prize money, while the eighth-place finisher will earn $10,000. One overall men’s champion and one overall women’s champion will be crowned at the end of the season based on points earned in each meet.
Last fall and winter, Grand Slam locked in many of the world’s top stars to participate, including Paris Olympic champions Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Gabby Thomas, and Cole Hocker among its headlining athletes. Aside from the lack of field event athletes, there are a handful of notable stars who won’t be competing as Racers—Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Americans Noah Lyles, Sha’carri Richardson, Grant Holloway, and Rai Benjamin among them—but there seems to be plenty of competitive depth in every event.
“It’s going to be a whole different year with a lot more races for me, but I’ve never shied away from that,” said Josh Kerr, the silver medalist in the 1500 meters at last summer’s Paris Olympics and the 2023 world champion in the event. “The big thing for us is: ‘Can we be a part of the change of the sport?’ I’m going to ride that train and try to be the change that we need—bigger platforms for the athletes, bigger prize money for the athletes, and bring in a bigger fan base for the sport, which will hopefully fund some big events in the future.”
Grand Slam Track Opener in Jamaica
The athlete lineup in this weekend’s meet in Kingston reads like a who’s who of the world’s top stars. In addition to McLaughlin-Levrone, Thomas, Hocker, and Kerr, it includes Olympic medalists Yared Nuguse (short distance), Masai Russell (short hurdles), Marileidy Paulino (long sprints), Grant Fisher (long distance), Jess Hull (short distance), Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (short hurdles), Brittany Brown (short sprints), and Kenny Bednarek (short sprints), as well elite U.S. competitors Fred Kerley (short sprints), Freddie Crittenden (short hurdles), Elise Cranny (long distance), Nikki Hiltz (short distance), Whittni Morgan (long distance), and Sage Hurta-Klecker (short distance).
“I really think Grand Slam is going to be really huge for track and field,” said Nuguse, who will race 1500- and 800-meter races in Kingston. “It feels like the first time, at least in my history as a pro runner, that someone’s really tried to make track into the big thing that every track athlete thinks it should be. It seems like they’re sparing no expense to try to make that happen, especially for this first year, so yeah, I think they’re going to pull it off.”
The event will take place at National Stadium in Kingston, which was recently refurbished with a fast Rekortan surface. Weather could be a factor, too, as the forecast is calling for temperatures in the upper 80s with high humidity on all three days.
“It’s already created a lot of hype and excitement,” said Hurta-Klecker, who was added as a short-distance Challenger to the Kingston meet this week as an injury substitution. “Especially with the level of prize money that’s now available to athletes, it’s sort of at a new level for track. Not only is it super motivating, but I think it’ll create some good head-to-head competition.”
Athletes/events to watch
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (Women’s long hurdles slam group)
Aside from pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis, no athlete in track has been as dominant as 25-year-old American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. The 2020 and 2024 Olympic champion and world record holder (50.37) hasn’t lost a race in the 400-meter hurdles since 2019, when she finished second to U.S. teammate Dalilah Muhammad at the world championships.
McLaughlin-Levrone will be the overwhelming favorite in the women’s 400-meter hurdles on Friday evening in Kingston, where she’ll square off against Olympic finalists in American Jasmine Jones (52.29), and Jamaica’s Rushell Clayton (52.51), and Shiann Salmon (52.97). It will be the season-opening hurdles race for each runner and the first race of the year for McLaughlin-Levrone. Muhammad, the former world record-holder, is also in the field, but she’s 35 and coming off a year in which she finished sixth at last summer’s U.S. Olympic Trials and failed to break 54 seconds for the first time since 2015.
Those same eight runners will double back on Sunday afternoon in a 400-meter race that could be even more compelling. McLaughlin-Levrone will once again be favored to win in dominant fashion, as she owns the fastest personal best (48.74) of the bunch and won the Diamond League Final (49.11) in the event last year. But her biggest competition will be the clock as she makes another run at the 48.70 American record set by Sanya Richards-Ross in 2006.
Cole Hocker, Josh Kerr, Yared Nuguse (Men’s short distance slam group)
Saturday’s men’s 1500 meters will include Hocker, Kerr, Nuguse in a rematch of the gold, silver and bronze medalists from last summer’s Paris Olympics. While Nuguse and Hocker had strong indoor seasons (Nuguse set a since-broken world record in the mile, while Hocker finished second to Grant Fisher in the fastest 3,000-meter race in history), Kerr hasn’t raced at all since he won the 5th Avenue Mile (3:44.3) on the streets of New York City last September. Although Kerr came up just short in the Olympics, he won the Bowerman Mile (3:45.34) last spring in Eugene, Oregon, by outkicking Ingebrigtsen and Nuguse. Don’t sleep on Scotland’s Neil Gourley, an Olympic 1500-meter finalist last year who just finished second in the 1500 at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in China.
What makes the Grand Slam format so compelling is the short distance slam group also includes elite 800-meter aces Emmanuel Wanyony of Kenya, Marco Arop of Canada, Mohamed Attaoui of Spain and Bryce Hoppel of the U.S. While none of those athletes figure to have the endurance chops to outrun Hocker, Kerr, or Nuguse in a fast 1500-meter race, they could certainly be contenders in a slower, more tactical race if it plays out that way. Less than 24 hours later, each of those athletes will return on tired legs for an epic two-lap showdown in the men’s 800 meters on Sunday afternoon. Wanyony won gold in the 800 at the Paris Olympics, followed by Arop in second, Hoppel in fourth, and Attaoui in fifth, and all have run in 1:42.04 or faster, while Hocker, Kerr, Nuguse, and Gourley are all in the 1:45 range.
“I’m very excited,” Nuguse said. “Honestly, the nervous part isn't even racing twice in three days—that’s pretty common. More so, it’s racing an event that I'm not as familiar with, that being the 800 meters. I still feel very fit, and I feel that I’m going to be able to be very competitive in that event, but I’m definitely glad the 1500 is first so I can do that, get a confident good race, and then just have some fun in the 800.”
Grant Fisher (Men’s long distance slam group)
Grant Fisher had a stellar 2024 campaign—earning Olympic bronze medals in 5,000- and 10,000-meter races in Paris—but the 27-year-old American distance running star has nearly outdone himself so far this year. He set a new world record in the 3,000 meters indoors (7:22.91) on February 8 by outkicking Hocker at the Millrose Games in New York City. Then, six days later, he set a world record in the 5,000 meters (12:44.09) at Boston University.
In Kingston, Fisher will race in the 5,000 meters Friday night and the 3,000 meters on Sunday afternoon, and will face stiff competition in both from Kenya’s Ronald Kwemoi, who finished just ahead of Fisher and took the silver in the Olympic 5,000 last summer, and Ethiopia’s Hagos Gebrhiwet, who was fifth in the Olympics but also ran a blistering 12:36.73—the second fastest time in history—last May at the Bislett Games in Oslo.
Also in the field are Ethiopia’s Telahun Haile Bekele (12:42.70), Spain’s Thierry Ndikumwenayo (12:48.10), Cooper Teare, the fourth-fastest 5,000-meter runner in American in history (12:54.72), and U.S. runner Dylan Jacobs (13:07.89), who just finished fifth in the 5,000 meters at the indoor world championships in China.
Brian Metzler is a Boulder, Colorado, writer and editor whose work has appeared in Runner’s World, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Outside, Trail Runner, The Chicago Tribune, and Red Bulletin. He’s a former walk-on college middle-distance runner who has transitioned to trail running and pack burro racing in Colorado.
