McLaughlin-Levrone wins 400m hurdles in Jamaica
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone dominated in her first race of 2025, taking the 400m hurdles in the debut of the Grand Slam Track series in Jamaica. She clocked 52.76 seconds, beating Dalilah Muhammad by 1.83 seconds.
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Washington Post
8 hours ago
- Washington Post
A new league gave track stars a financial cushion, and more uncertainty
Before Kenny Bednarek joined Grand Slam Track, he had become one of the most accomplished sprinters of his era. He won silver medals in the 200 meters at the past two Olympics. He reached the 100-meter final in Paris. Just seven men ever have run halfway around a track faster. For all his achievements, it took the league started this year by Olympic legend Michael Johnson for Bednarek to reach a new level of financial stability. Bednarek dominated the series and earned $400,000 in prize money, already roughly double what he would make in a typical year. Even before this year's national and world championships, Bednarek set aside money for investments he could not have made in past years.
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Yahoo
Michael Johnson cancels Grand Slam Track's LA meet amid financial concerns
Michael Johnson will cancel the fourth and final meet of the inaugural Grand Slam Track season in Los Angeles to avoid major financial losses at the event. Athletes and their representatives will be updated in a Zoom call on Thursday amid silence in the build-up to the LA leg scheduled for 28-29 June, after competing 'challenger' athletes were not announced ahead of time as they were before the previous three meets. Advertisement The Independent understands that the economics of the LA event, and Grand Slam Track's deal with its host partner, UCLA, had become financially unviable. New investors are set to be announced next week and sources inside Grand Slam Track suggested that making the best short-term financial decision was key to ensuring the longer-term outlook of the project. The Los Angeles leg will not be replaced with another host city and the season will instead come to a premature end. But organisers remain confident that Grand Slam Track will continue in 2026, with LA likely to be on the circuit, and have privately stressed the positives of what they insist has been a relatively successful 'pilot' year. Before the opening event in Kingston, Jamaica, Johnson's co-founder Steve Gera told The Independent that they were 'maniacally focused on having the youngest fanbase of any sports league in the world in the next five years'. Josh Kerr, Dina Asher-Smith, Fred Kerley and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone signed up to Grand Slam Track (Getty/The Independent) The star-studded list of athletes – which included US stars Kenny Bednarek, Gabrielle Thomas and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone as well as British names including Josh Kerr and Dina Asher-Smith – competed in two linked events, such as 100m and 200m sprints, with results combined to calculate the winners in each category. Prize money for winners stood at $100,000, with $50,000 for runners-up and $10,000 for eighth place. Advertisement The competition was billed as a much-needed shot in the arm for athletics, although the decision to include only track events and omit field disciplines was met with criticism. 'I am going to save what I think I can save,' Johnson explained. 'I think I can save track, I don't think I can save track and field.' But ticket sales have been slow and sponsorship and broadcast revenues have not met lofty expectations. The Times reports that organisers will save around £2.2m in prize money and travel expenses by cancelling the Los Angeles event. Some of the action has played out in half-empty stadiums, although the third event in Philadelphia was more popular, with close to 30,000 tickets sold over two days after the action was compressed from the three days of events held in Kingston and Miami. A disappointing crowd in Jamaica prompted organisers to review their locations for 2026, with a variety of other markets being considered, including European cities. Advertisement Gera told The Independent in March: 'We had discussions with a couple of different cities across the UK [but] that was a decision that we made to just focus on tightly packaging our run of shows [in the Americas] in year one. But we're really excited to get the product into Europe in the not too distant future.' Grand Slam Track is set to officially confirm its decision on the LA event later on Thursday. Organisers declined to comment.
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Los Angeles Times
L.A. was supposed to host two track meets in June. Now both are canceled
Grand Slam Track canceled the final meet of its first season, in Los Angeles, leaving the host of the 2028 Olympics and the country's second-largest city without a major track meet this summer. The news Thursday about the abrupt scrubbing of the meet, scheduled for the last weekend in June at Drake Stadium, combines with USA Track and Field's recent decision to take an event set at the same stadium for earlier in June — the L.A. Grand Prix — off the calendar. USATF CEO Max Siegel told The Associated Press that the federation pulled its event because it was not viable to hold two major track meets at the same venue in L.A. in the span of three weeks. Grand Slam Track founder Michael Johnson said 'the decision to conclude the inaugural Grand Slam Track season is not taken lightly, but one rooted in a belief that we have successfully achieved the objectives we set out to in this pilot season.' He cited a shift in the global economic landscape as the reason for canceling the LA event, which will be part of the league's 2026 calendar. Siegel said leaders at USATF 'understand the significance of the (LA) market,' and that there are plans for leaders to meet later this summer to coordinate the future of track there and throughout the United States, starting in 2026. 'It highlights the complicated way the (sport) works, and how difficult it is to financially sustain track meets,' Siegel said. 'The only way to do it in a sustainable way is collaboration and partnerships.' In the short term, USATF is looking to find meets for a handful of athletes who still need to reach standards or collect points to qualify for world championships later this year and were planning on competing in Los Angeles. The news was far from what Olympic and track leaders were hoping as they lead in to the first Summer Games in the United States since 1996 in a city that, 12 years before that, put Carl Lewis, Edwin Moses, Evelyn Ashford and others in the sports spotlight. Johnson raised around $30 million to launch Grand Slam Track this spring, promising a new way of doing track — involving a group of runners under contract racing twice over a weekend and focusing more on where they finished than actual times. Among the top athletes he signed were Olympic champions Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Gabby Thomas, though two other American track stars, Sha'Carri Richardson and Noah Lyles, did not race in the league. The league said Kenny Bednarek and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden are the league's 'Racers of the Year,' having won three straight slam championships each. The first three events, in Kingston, Jamaica, Miami and Philadelphia, doled out about $9.45 million, with another $3 million expected to be paid in L.A. Bonuses were expected to go to season-long winners of the categories. Pells and Graham write for the Associated Press.
