Has Grand Slam Track wrecked Michael Johnson's credibility?

What I do not understand is why World Athletics were so cool for an independent competitor to the Diamond League spring up. Most sports governing bodies fight tooth and nail to stop any new franchise forming. We also don't know what impact such an early competitive start to the season will have on the athletes concerned come September and the World Championships (or the DL final).

This suggests to me that World Athletics do not agree with you that "track never needed saving", and realized that some new format needed to be trialled (but not with their money).

After the failure of the World Championships in Eugene, WA saw GST as another opportunity to grow the sport in the US.

Which makes me think that every attempt on creating a new league from "scratch" in the US allways will fail. A T&F league based in the US, yeah why not. But why throw out everything that allready works?

I don't see him getting back on the Beeb unless athletes get paid

And I don't think that's going to happen and don't see how he could be on screen pontificating in his usual manner

Diamond League works because it's compact and compressed into two hours of viewing - minimal gaps between events. I don't know much about Grand Slam Track but if it was spread over three days it's onto a loser right away. Don't understand how they would've thought that concept would be popular?

Not just that but the crazy idea of having top athletes competing in weaker events

And didn't even think to fill the stadium

He pledged $30 million and reneged.

Period.

I have a hard time accepting the DL works *perfectly well* when many of the top athletes (e.g. Sydney) barely compete in it. Even Bolt himself only won 1 DL title in his whole career.

My opinion - Grand Slam track and his sociopath ability to lie, is clear proof to me he was a major dopers / cheater back in the day.

The Diamond League works fairly well to promote athletics in Europe. In the USA the Prefontaine meets works well, but that is it.

Athletes that live in time zones where European DL meets are held are more likely to attend and benefit more from those meets.

MJ wanted GST to work in the USA for USA based athletes.

GST did work well for fans of US based athletes (like Josh K and Sydney ML) who rarely compete in other Diamond League meets.

Not sure yet how well GST worked for those athletes,,,

Who was the idiot who came up with the plan to have a three day meet stretched out over nine hours of TV coverage?

I'm pretty sure that the Diamond League would be fine with more of their meets in the USA. The problem is that they're gonna err on the side of stability and sustainability and besides Prefontaine, there aren't many meets in the USA that have proven to be in that category.

Maybe instead of setting up an entire new league, a much smaller investment into an existing meet to make it the number 2 meet in the USA could make it end up in the DL in a few years.

I want to know if the likes of Centro and Sanya Richards Ross got paid for their commentating or how that worked as well. Seeing people discuss three days of track meet made me realize that’s 3 days of paying workers and all the support staff as well. Wondering if those people were promised future pay or…?

What credibility?

He knew the didn’t have money, he can’t fully pass all the blame to the sponsor pulling out when he lied after being so about “transparency”.

If he did everything right and the sponsor did him dirty- ie he then had ground to sue the sponsor he could be forgiven but he also messed up so badly cause he wanted this to run on his time line instead of holding back and doing it correctly. What a cowboy.

Imagine being an athlete who won like grant or Nikki and expecting you’re after bagging 100k, celebrating that- and now crickets.
How devastating.