What you need to know about (and how to watch) Grand Slam Track

Justin Piercy · CBC Sports

· Posted: Apr 02, 2025 10:58 AM EDT | Last Updated: 3 minutes ago

Some of the world's champion way athletes vie successful a caller nonrecreational league that makes its debut this week.

Here are the answers to the astir often asked questions astir Grand Slam Track earlier its archetypal halt successful Kingston, Jamaica, connected Friday.

Why was this league created?

Grand Slam Track is the brainchild of American sprinting great, Michael Johnson. The four-time Olympic champion and eight-time satellite champion believes that track has had a occupation getting its biggest stars to vie against 1 different outside of the Olympic Games and satellite championships.

Johnson, who is besides commissioner of the caller league, told The Wall Street Journal successful 2024 that the objective "is to supply that benignant of head-to-head competition, that drama, the stakes, and archer those stories astir each of that compelling play arsenic good – 4 times a year."

Johnson went into much item astir the 'why' of Grand Slam Track successful an interrogation with CBC Sports contributor Morgan Campbell:

WATCH | Johnson discusses his present pro way league:

How is it antithetic than the Diamond League?

There are respective differences, but the main contrasts are:

• The fig of events: Four Grand Slams versus 15 Diamond League stops
   
• Grand Slam Track emphasizes head-to-head matchups between the aforesaid athletes, wherever Diamond League fields look vastly antithetic from halt to stop
   
• Prize money: Grand Slam participants are paid a basal interest and vie for a overmuch larger prize excavation (more connected that below)
   
• Runners vie successful 2 antithetic races astatine each Grand Slam event

How does it work?

As the sanction mightiness imply, the Grand Slam Track play is contested implicit 4 meets in four antithetic cities. A full of 96 athletes volition vie – 48 men and 48 women.

With the abovementioned accent connected 'head-to-head matchups,' fractional of those runners (24 men and 24 women) person committed to run at every halt connected the Grand Slam circuit. Those peculiar athletes are called 'racers.'

The different fractional of the field, called 'challengers,' volition beryllium selected connected a per-Slam basis. The criteria for the enactment of challengers considers caller performances and athletes who would make intriguing matchups.

All athletes volition vie successful 1 of six lawsuit groups:

• Short sprints (100m, 200m)
• Long sprints (200m, 400m)
• Short hurdles (100m hurdles [women] / 110m hurdles [men], 100m level [both])
• Long hurdles (400m hurdles, 400m flat)
• Short distance (800m, 1,500m)
• Long distance (3,000m, 5,000m)

Each group volition have its 8 athletes run the 2 antithetic events at each Grand Slam meet. Runners will collect points for their results successful each event, which are based on a sliding scale:

• 1st: 12 points
• 2nd: 8 points
• 3rd: 6 points
• 4th: 5 points
• 5th: 4 points
• 6th: 3 points
• 7th: 2 points
• 8th: 1 point

The runner with the astir cumulative points from their 2 races at a Grand Slam is declared the victor of their event group and declared a Slam champion.

By the extremity of the season, the 2 competitors who earn the astir points crossed each Slams – one from the men's groups and 1 from the women's groups – volition beryllium crowned 'Racer of the Year.'

Why are determination nary tract events?

Johnson has said that his league believes that athletes should person the undivided attraction of those watching them compete. That means 1 lawsuit astatine a time, and that fitting successful tract events implicit the two-and-a-half hours of broadcast clip was not an option.

Who volition compete?

Grand Slam Track boasts immoderate large names who person signed connected to beryllium racers, including reigning Olympic champions like Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (women's 400m hurdles), Gabby Thomas (women's 200m), and Cole Hocker (men's 1,500m).

Men's 100m sprinters Fred Kerley and Kenny Bednarek are besides committed to the 4 Grand Slam events.

Marco Arop is the lone Canadian racer successful Grand Slam Track, but it's imaginable that much Canadians could beryllium selected to vie arsenic challengers, as Charles Philibert-Thiboutot is for the Kingston competition.

Here's a afloat database of the runners that volition vie astatine each Grand Slam event:

Men's racer roster

Short sprints

• Kenny Bednarek, United States
• Zharnel Hughes, Great Britain
• Fred Kerley, United States
• Oblique Seville, Jamaica

Long sprints

• Quincy Hall, United States
• Matthew Hudson-Smith, Great Britain
• Jereem Richards, Trinidad and Tobago
• Muzala Samukonga, Zambia

Short hurdles

• Devon Allen, United States
• Freddie Crittenden, United States
• Daniel Roberts, United States
• Sasha Zhoya, France

Long hurdles

• Roshawn Clarke, Jamaica
• Caleb Dean, United States
• Alison dos Santos, Brazil
• Clément Ducos, France

Short distance

• Marco Arop, Canada
• Josh Kerr, Great Britain
• Cole Hocker, United States
• Yared Nuguse, United States

Long distance

• Grant Fisher, United States
• Hagos Gebrhiwet, Ethiopia
• Luis Grijalva, Guatemala
• Ronald Kwemoi, Kenya

Women's racer roster

Short sprints

• Brittany Brown, United States
• Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, United States
• Daryll Neita, Great Britain
• Gabby Thomas, United States

Long sprints

• Salwa Eid Nasser, Bahrain
• Alexis Holmes, United States
• Marileidy Paulinho, Dominican Republic
• Nickisha Pryce, Jamaica

Short hurdles

• Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, Puerto Rico
• Ackera Nugent, Jamaica
• Masai Russell, United States
• Cyréna Samba-Mayela, France

Long hurdles

• Rushell Clayton, Jamaica
• Jasmine Jones, United States
• Shamier Little, United States
• Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, United States

Short distance

• Nikki Hiltz, United States
• Jess Hull, Australia
• Mary Moraa, Kenya
• Diribe Welteji, Ethiopia

Long distance

• Elise Cranny, United States
• Tsige Gebreselama, Ethiopia
• Agnes Negtich, Kenya
• Nozomi Tanaka, Japan

What's connected the line?

Racers competing successful Grand Slam Track events person an yearly basal compensation to vie successful each 4 Slams, portion challengers gain a per-Slam fee.

Both groups volition besides vie for a stock of the $12.6M US full prize pool.

The afloat payout for each of the lawsuit groups, per Slam, is arsenic follows:

• 1st: $100,000
• 2nd: $50,000
• 3rd: $30,000
• 4th: $25,000
• 5th: $20,000
• 6th: $15,000
• 7th: $12,500
• 8th: $10,000

If 1 racer was to triumph each of their Grand Slam events, they would locomotion distant with $400,000 successful prize money.

WATCH | Track's caller pro league, the Grand Slam of Track, explained:

Where and erstwhile are the events happening?

• Kingston, Jamaica (April 4-6)

• Miami (May 2-4)

• Philadelphia (May 30 - June 1)

• Los Angeles (June 27-29)

How tin fans watch the events?

All Grand Slam Track events volition beryllium streamed unrecorded connected CBCSports.ca and connected CBC Gem. For a afloat broadcast docket of athletics events this season, click here.