No Grand Slam Track in 2026 till athletes paid for 2025: Johnson
The four-time Olympic sprint gold medallist said he had taken the decision to cancel the fourth and final meeting in Los Angeles "to avoid further losses and start the lengthy process of stabilising the company to get back on track.
"But unfortunately, we saw circumstances change in ways beyond our control," he said.
He added: "The 2026 season will not happen until those obligations are met -- and that is my #1 priority."
Johnson launched Grand Slam as an alternative to the Diamond League series of international meetings with an important difference -- it would only feature track events and not field events.
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France 24
5 hours ago
- France 24
No Grand Slam Track in 2026 till athletes paid for 2025: Johnson
Johnson admitted in a statement "we are struggling with our ability to compensate" athletes from the three meetings that took place in 2025 in Kingston, Jamaica, Miami and Philadelphia. The four-time Olympic sprint gold medallist said he had taken the decision to cancel the fourth and final meeting in Los Angeles "to avoid further losses and start the lengthy process of stabilising the company to get back on track. "But unfortunately, we saw circumstances change in ways beyond our control," he said. He added: "The 2026 season will not happen until those obligations are met -- and that is my #1 priority." Johnson launched Grand Slam as an alternative to the Diamond League series of international meetings with an important difference -- it would only feature track events and not field events.
France 24
6 hours ago
- France 24
Lyles hints at hitting Olympic form before Thompson re-match
Lyles won a thrilling race at the Stade de France just over a year ago by the narrowest of margins and went on to claim bronze in the 200m when suffering from Covid. For the first time since that Olympic 100m final, the self-proclaimed showman will on Saturday come face to face with Kishane Thompson, the 24-year-old Jamaican he pipped by just five-thousandths of a second in Paris. "The 100m is obviously the glory race, it's obviously the one that gets you the most attention," Lyles said on Friday ahead of the Silesia Diamond League meet in the Polish city of Chorzow. "I can say that if I'd won the 200m and lost the 100 it wouldn't have hit the same going back to the US for sure and probably even in the world it'd be a lot different." Lyles played down the fact that he had not met Thompson since that balmy night in the French capital. "Personally, I wanted to just do a one-on-one race in Jamaica," he said. "I thought that would have just been amazing, me and Kishane right next to each other, lane by lane, just us two duking it out. "I feel like we could have sold out the crowd for sure, I thought that would have been a lot of fun." Instead, the duo will face off in Poland with Lyles describing his run-in to the September 13-21 world championships in Tokyo as "the most important races of the year". "These are the biggest competitions, at high levels. This is literally prepping myself to say, 'This is what it's going to be like, if not more intense, as I get closer to Tokyo'. "I need to get in that frame of mind. So I need to be in those situations." Lyles said he was rounding into form: "The results I've seen in practice have shown that I'm exactly where I was last year, or heading in the same direction as I was last year, if not better." The 28-year-old American predicted a fast race on Saturday, with a quartet of tried and tested US teammates in the shape of Kenny Bednarek, Christian Coleman, Lindsey Courtney and Trayvon Bromell, as well as South African Akani Simbine in the field. "You basically have the Olympic final maybe missing two people, but adding in some just-as-fast people," Lyles said. "Having Kishane there makes it even better. It's going to be a moment that everyone's looking at their calendar, saying 'OK this is what I'm basing my world championships picks off'." Lyles, however, was in no doubt about who was the biggest draw. "I'm going to just put it like this: there are definitely races that have Noah and there are races that don't have Noah and I've watched the numbers for races that don't have me and they don't do very well," he said. "You watch the races with me and you're like, 'Oh wow yeah there's a lot more viewership'. I'm not saying I'm the face of the sport, I'm just saying that there's a lot more interest when I run it. "A showman, a rock star, yes that's a very good way to describe how I like to view myself when I go into a track meet and how I want to interact with the crowd."
France 24
8 hours ago
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Hodgkinson happy to be back on track ahead of Tokyo worlds
The 23-year-old Briton, also a two-time world silver medallist, will compete in the two-lap race at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia, Poland, on Saturday. "Yeah, it's been a long time, over a year since Paris," Hodginkson told a press conference on Friday. "That wasn't my plan to be this late, but I'm just super happy to get back in the start line. "I missed it. I missed it a lot. This is what I trained to do. So I can't wait to get out there and just give it my absolute best. And yeah, we'll see what happens." It marks the end of a long road back from a hamstring injury for Hodgkinson. She was forced to withdraw from an event in February that bore her name – the Keely Klassic, in which she wanted a tilt at the long-standing world indoor 800m world record. Hodgkinson then pulled out of last month's Diamond League meet in London. But just a month away from the world championships in Tokyo, Hodgkinson will return to action in southwest Poland. In what looks like a perfect line-up for a comeback after so long out of elite competition, the field is relatively moderate. Oratile Nowe of Botswana has the best season's best with 1min 57.49sec, while the field also includes the Australian duo of Abbey Caldwell and Catriona Bisset, American Raevyn Rogers and Slovakia's Gabriela Gajanova, who finished runner-up to Hodgkinson in the European championships in Rome last year. Her biggest rivals such as Kenya's Mary Moraa, Ethiopian Tsige Duguma and South African Prudence Sekgodiso are all absent, while Hodgkinson's in-form training partner Georgia Hunter Bell will race the 1,500m in Chorzow. Following 800m wins at the Diamond League events in Stockholm and London, Hunter Bell will test herself in the longer event against Ethiopia's Gudaf Tsegay and Diribe Welteji in a high-quality line-up. Hodgkinson, however, is expected to go head-to-head with Hunter Bell, the Olympic 1500m bronze medallist, over 800m at the Lausanne Diamond League next week as the days count down to Tokyo. "Tomorrow is just a stepping stone on the way there," Hodgkinson said. "I'm looking forward to getting out there, just being competitive again, and I've come out ready to go. "I'm just excited to put something together. It's been a frustrating year, for real. "It's been so long coming off the back of winning the Olympics last year, not ideal at all, that I just couldn't even get on the start line. And it's definitely been a bit upsetting at times.
