The thread was initially started before the details were announced and was entitled: Michael Johnson Track League unveil today + announcing a major athlete - who do we think it is? Now we've changed the title. The major athlete was Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.
There is a press event in LA today where the Michael Johnson league will be unveiled and a major athlete announced.
The press invitation says “Following the official unveiling of the league, Anderson will host and moderate a panel discussion with Johnson, who will be joined by the league's first signed racer, one of the
biggest track stars in the world.“
We discussed this in podcast.
Robert and I said it needs to be Sha’carri, Noah or Sydney if they want to move the needle.
Fred Kerley was mentioned as someone who might need the money the most.
Rai Benjamin and Athing Mu are also in LA.
It’ll be interesting to see what they unveil. As track currently is an independent series of events and not a League, with some apologies to the Diamond League.
Update from Rojo: This thread was started before the announcement was made. Here is the announcement.
It's important that everyone read it and understand the event groups are siloed off. See this PDF:
https://www.letsrun.com/news/2...
Call me not a fan of it. I do not like how the event groups are siloed off. Let's kill of the Diamond League so SML never has to race Athing Mu or Paulino in a flat 400. I have little interest in seeing Grant Holloway race a flat 100mh every weekend against only other hurdlers. Or to potentially never see Josh Kerr race Jakob Ingebrigtsen as they are in different even groups. Let's hope at a minimum that Jakob could run in the 800/1500 one meet and then 3000/5000 at another meet.
I want all of the best 400 runners in the 400. I dont' want to watch 2 400s, one with the hurdlers and one with the 200 stars. I mean think about Michael Johnson. He was a 200m guy. But he'd be in the 200/400 group in this and never race the top 100 guys in the 200.
Michael Johnson's big rivals in the 1996 Olympics in the 200 were Frank Fredericks and Ato Boldon. Under this format, he's NEVER race them. If Tebogo ends up being a 200/400 guy, he'll never race Lyles in the 200 at these meets..
