Gabby Thomas signs with GST but not to an event category?

Syd also wasn’t announced in a specific event group. These two, and likely some others, will switch between event groups based on where they are in their training and what match-ups being in different groups will create.

I saw Breaking News on Flotrack's Instagram and I thought she got popped for testing positive. Darn.

That’s great. I hadn’t heard that about McLaughlin-levrone. Wasn’t necessarily looking forward to her dominating all the 400m hurdles while Paulino dominates all the 400m.

Not getting to see those two race head to head at the diamond league final kind of made Sydeny’s appearance a joke. Hopefully they’ll race a few head to head at gst next year.

the event group idea was stupid from the jump

There are a number of doubles (400, 800), (1500, 3000) that aren’t possible at all in this system. That will cause us to miss out on some of the cool matchups that are allegedly the whole point of GST.

That’s even leaving out the Syd-specific doubles that could be cool (100h, 400h), (200, 400h).

A better system would be requiring runners to designate a “primary” event, and also enter a secondary event in each meet. That’s how you get races like Letsile Tebogo vs Rai Benjamin over 400m.

So already this exciting and new innovative approach to racing is being bent to accomodate a select few athletes. Wasn't this supposed to be the unique value proposition of Grand Slam Track and already it's becoming obvious that it's nonsensical and impractical?

Not hard to predict now what's going to happen right? You are going to have guys like Kerr, Nuguse and Hocker - all three of them better over 3000m than 800m turn around and say "well if SML and GT get to do this then why can't we?" (and especially in the case of Hocker who as an Olympic Champion in the mens 1500m with the Olympic record has a better resume than Thomas does) - allowing this is going to open the floodgates with agents all of whom believe their athletes are just as worthy of special treatment.

Someone mentioned switching between groups? How does this happen then? What about the 4 fixed "racers" defending their turf? Except not in the W400/400h group or the womens 100/200 group? How do they navigate this? Once again - I just don't get this concept.

I doubt the veracity of what "Fuftckixrrx" posted. I think it's more likely that GST is to waiting to assign Sydney and Gabby to an event group until they know who else they've signed and where Sydney and Gabby are most needed.

Although it's not the subject of this thread, I disagree that Hocker has a better resume than Gabby. Not counting relays, Gabby has three times as many outdoor global championship medals as Hocker. Gabby is 4th all-time in the world in her event; Hocker is 7th in his.

She's a huge talent regardless but as the #4 200m all time she can run either a great 100m or 400m (and she holds relay golds in both). Probably doesn't want to be constrained as a 100/200 or 200/400

I kind of don't.

I do think it's strange that every other "racer" has been assigned a group and the first person who signed with the event doesn't. And given what we know about the assumed privilege of the Kersee group it wouldn't seem implausible that this is what they might want to do.

Okay so Paulino and SML are clearly the two best women 400m runners on the planet right? No offense to returned doper Salwa Eid Naser (cool that she gets a fat deal as a "racer" btw), but Sydney is better than she is and the fact she ran faster at the DL final in long tights and flats than Paulino did in the "actual" final should be evidence of that.

Under your logic the only scenario that works (a late group assignment based on needs) is if McL is part of the 200/400 group that Paulino is because Paulino is not running the hurdles and of course we know Sydney can run a 200. But where does that leave your womens 400mH/400m grouping? Rushell Clayton and Jasmine Jones battling it out? No the best case scenario is that McLaughlin hops across groups so she can run the 400mH and then the 400m vs Paulino/Naser but back to the original point, this makes a mockery of your grouping system and creates chaos as to how you fill your fields and figure out your overall "champ". Or am I missing something you aren't?

Regarding Hocker, fine we can agree to disagree. The mens 1500m title is a considerably more coveted title than the womens 200m. I don't care how many outdoor medals Thomas has (and we are talking 1 v 3 which is honestly irrelevant), Hocker is the current OC in one of the two blue-ribboned events (the other being the 100) - it is one of the two highest profile events on the Olympic track and field program. Point being, he would easily have as much right to be requesting what events he wants to run in the event Thomas could be.

Event group flexibility should make for better competition. M-L having a faster time in a heat than Paulino isn’t decisive. I want to see them down the home stretch pushing each other, not just mailing it in with no one within 10 meters. Paulino went undefeated all of last year and ran a lot. No one has a chance or beating them in 400m if they don’t race each other.

I’d think GST won’t dictate what events Thomas and M-L race. they’ll tell gst and the league will fill in the lanes with how ever many challengers are needed. usually 4, maybe 3 or 5 depending on need.

too bad the groups themselves aren’t flexible. a 1500/ 3k (or 5k) is what the people want. The 800/1500 group has shown to be the most forced and gimmicky with distances putting athletes furthest out of their element.

I 100% agree with you but this is also true for so many scenarios. Would I want to see Nuguse jump up and take on Fisher over 3000m? Absolutely. Same with Kerr/Hocker. These "best comp" situations exist potentially across many of the groupings.

But again, how does this logistically work given the format. How would you determine the "Slam" winner if athletes crossed over groups? Do they become ineligible for the prize $$$? Look at a plausible situation - Sydney runs the 400H day one and Paulino runs the 200. Next day they want to create the H2H of the best 400m runners so they take McL over to the 200/400 group and what, take someone out and put them into the 400H/400 race? Now they are earning points across groups and it simply doesn't work. Say you are Naser in that 2/4 group - the second best 400 runner (I hate using her for this but shes the best example) - now all of a sudden you are the 3rd best runner and those potential points you lose could be crucial in potentially winning the Slam (let's say she beat Paulino by enough placings in that 200 the day before).

By allowing group flexibility/crossover you blow-up your entire format. By not allowing it you (as you alluded to) you don't get the best actual product on the track so you have to choose one or the other - unless there is a computation/situation that I am missing that would allow both (and if there is please somebody set me straight)?

Lots of good questions. At this point, we don't know if "Fuftckixrrx" is right or not. I think it's best to wait to see what GST actually does with Sydney and Gabby rather than speculating about it and criticizing GST based on our speculations.

Yeah, we'll have to agree to disagree on Gabby's resume vs Hocker's. I don't think Gabby's Olympic bronze medal from Tokyo and her world championship silver medal from Budapest are irrelevant.

This thing might be successful

Yes, I think that's the bigger picture takeaway from Gabby's signing. There are still some big names out there who haven't signed (yet), but so far GST has gotten commitments from a good number of Olympic & world champions and medalists. We may have some valid concerns and questions about their format, but they have a very impressive lineup of racers for a start-up league.

grandslamtrack.com

Grand Slam Track | The new global league by legendary sprinter Michael Johnson

Grand Slam Track is an elite track event series featuring the sport's biggest stars in head-to-head competition | Grand Slam Track

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They’re not going to allow athletes to change groups within a Slam (I don’t think—like others, I don’t see how that could work), and many athletes wouldn’t be good fits to change event groups in different Slams, but for some athletes, competing indifferent event groups in different Slams would make sense with their training/racing histories (and allowing them to do that may have contributed to GST being able to sign them at all) and also allow the league to create more match-ups between stars that we all want to see.

To be clear, I don’t have any inside information, but I’m also certain this is correct; if you’re trying to create a compelling product, that flexibility is a feature not a bug.

How about embracing the fact that Michael Johnson had the vision and acumen to get this started. Support the guy. He’s a track guy and a business man that I am incredibly thankful for he having the guts to put this league together.

It’s an athlete and fan centric league for goodness sakes. That is what athletes and fans have been wanting. The details, the background, the thought and the risk takes a lot of brain power, dedication and passion to bring economic supporters together and pull off.

Michael Johnson and the athletes who have signed up for year one get nothing but praise from me.

The athletes that seem to be holding out for something more may want to think about the common good of track and field and step up to support this effort. Ultimately, the success of this league is everyone’s success. Success and wins can be built upon and improved upon going forward.

This is a great initiative. Support the sport!

But there’s supposed to be a year long champion? I don’t know I don’t really care for that part. How about celebrate individual race winners? Accrued points is not a cool track thing, it is not fun to follow in decathlon for instance. I don’t think there’s too much interesting about facilitating a second H2H race especially if it’s outside of athletes best event. Josh Kerr racing Marco Arop in an 800? Much rather see Kerr one time vs Grijalva in a 3k. I hope they relax the contracts to running 2 events with the 1 primary eg marquee event in every Slam. From there you can choose and we wouldn’t have to force-feed athletes in events that don’t fit them.

The answer to the bolded question is “No.” GST isn’t crowning any season-long champions—just a winner of each event group at each Slam (like tennis or golf)—and that seems to be the source of much of the confusion about how an athlete could switch event groups.

All of the other criticisms may be valid, though. I’m trying to keep an open mind, but I’m not sure they landed on the best format…

For the longest time I did also think there was a "final" where there would be an "overall champion of such. Turns out that's not the case as you said.

Look for all the people out there up in arms out the "hate" on GST and Johnson it's not the case at all. Track is massively underserved financially - well all know this. While there are clowns being written 80 million dollar checks to just get off a roster in the NFL, we have athletes running/throwing/jumping at the absolute peak of human beings physical capabilities and being comparatively compensated peanuts. So Johnson using his name and status to source this money and direct it to athletes - great.

I think any frustration (and I know this is the case from my side) is that chances like these (huge influxs of cash going into a sport) don't happen that often so we are really relying on Johnson to do this right or it maybe another decade + before anything like this happens again. To be clear, this doesn't benefit the sport if it is a 2 season thing which just bleeds cash and isn't sustainable. Sure, the athletes who get to compete in it will benefit as will Johnson in terms of money - but an XFL situation (sorry for non-Americans who might not get that reference) isn't good long term.

I have some pretty good sources in the sport and I've been told that WA have been desperately trying to collaborate with Johnson on GST since it was announced to make this work with the scheduling etc and Johnson has ignored them. When I read the comments he made about how he believes he can "can save track" and knowing a little about Michael Johnson to begin with, I completely believe what I was told. It's one of the primary reasons he doesn't even have a European meet - despite desperately needing one for exposure and credibility. So lets be honest - we now have four meets in very underwhelming cities (jury out on Philly - I know Penn does great but that's it's own thing), we have a format that as discussed now ad nauseum above, has handcuffed itself and won't provide the best product (how will we see McLaughlin v Paulino, Fisher v Nuguse etc etc?) and does not work with WA at all - apart from being held earlier in the season to avoid basic date conflicts.

It's not the intent that is the issue - the intent is incredible. It's the execution which just seems like a square peg in a round hole right now. 24 track events - the longest of which is 15min long, spread out over 3 days? "Only the fastest" is the narrative - but the racing format won't pertain to that and isn't this/wasn't this about the art of head to head racing and not just running fast times? It's only because I also want to see this succeed but succeed for the sport of athletics long term (and not just a select athletes pockets right now) which is why I have these questions and concerns.