Grand Slam Jamaica April 4-6 Full Field Released

I get the 8 person fields for the sprints up to the 800m, however, this size is small for 1500m, 3000m and 5000m. Could they not have expanded the number of entrants for the distance events?

Also, interesting to see Neil Gourley come in as a challenger. Does that mean he won't run World Indoors?

Men's distance is weak. I see Grijalva is out. But do we really need Cooper Teare and Dylan Jacobs?

I see GST's commitment to getting all the Racers to show up for every meet did not last. Expecting Kerr to be "sick" for the next one.

Yeah, and some of the racers that should be competing on all the 4 meets have already withdrawn from the first one. Wait until the day before, there is still a chance there will be a few more.

On a side note, I also can't wait to see a 13:30 type of race for the 5000m with only 8 racers... Usually those who are not into distance events find it extremely boring to watch a 5k. GST is meant to make it more exciting for the public. Now imagine a pedestrian pace and a kick during the last lap with just 8 athletes. It is going to be the most boring ever. Not even distance fans want to see this.

MJ keeps on criticising fast distance races as he says they are only chasing records. What he never mentions is that all the sprints events are always run all out regardless if they break any record or not, and that is what makes it fun. If you start seeing 3000m races at 8:00 pace or 1500m at 3:40 pace the fun in distance events will disappear.

Pacers and lights are perfectly fine, no one says you should have to follow them but it is good to have them in case someone is interested in running fast and taking advantage from it.

GST is purely for sprints, american based athletes/fans and money.

All in all these fields are pretty sick, especially men’s “short distance.” When I first heard rumblings about Grand Slam Track, I wouldn’t have thought we’d get Hocker, Nuguse, Kerr, Arop, Wanyonyi and Hoppel racing at 800 & 1500 in Jamaica in early April.

I like watching tactical distance races.

Yeah so weak, they only have 4 out of the top 5 finishers from the Olympic 5000m last year 🤦‍♂️

we can’t he do both?

If he doesn’t race, he doesn’t get paid, right?

You made a lot of great points as to why this is just going to be basically impossible for this league to survive - especially beyond sprints.

At some point times are going to matter. The exact same way they matter in the sprints. Times don’t matter in the OG/WC because of what’s at stake. But there is nothing really at stake here and the times run are a basic marker of the holistic quality of the race - fair or unfair. I really don’t know how these MD/LD races will go - certainly some underground stuff I’ve heard from guys about “training through” these next months and using GST as part of training would massively concern me if I was Johnson.

You run the risk of a massive part of your league with arguably the most potential followers (MD/LD fans) having races that resemble prelim rounds at major events. I also think about the danger of guys mailing in some races if they believe they secured enough points in their favored event - especially in the 8/15 group. The entire value proposition of this league is competition and I don’t think you can afford to have anyone in your race appear to be just going through the motions at any point - but I just can’t see how that doesn’t happen. I guess we are going to find out real soon.

You are ultimately right - it’s a sprint format, created by a former sprinter.

Yeah, the previous poster is clueless.

What is up with Grijalva, though? Is he injured? With all that is going on with the new administration these must be unnerving times for him and his family so hopefully all is OK in that regard.

I am also wondering when we'll see Abby Steiner come back. She has had a tough few years with 3 surgeries for Haglund's as well as a partially torn Achilles. There is no sense in rushing things but I would like to see her back this year if possible.

I really don't agree with your sentiment. Centro won Olympic gold with a 3:50. Was that not an exciting race to watch?

Hobbs?

But you can say the exact opposite for the short sprints. Jamaica is supposed to be the sprint center of the world and we don't have the 4 biggest sprinters in Jamaica or the 4 biggest sprinters in the world in this meet.

From an article I just put up on the front page.

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2025/03/full-fields-for-first-grand-slam-track-meet-are-set-3-quick-thoughts/

I totally agree with you.

I can only imagine what will some of the top athletes think when they already have four 3000m on their legs and have to double again for a 5000m in less than 48h. It will sure be great training for WC heats/final format but I'm sure it will hinder their preparation for major championships and put in doubts in their mind on whether they should be competing that much.

To race 100 and 200m in a span of 3 days or race 3000 and 5000m races is completely different. I don't see the format having much potential on top of the disregard for fast times.

It was, but it also was an Olympic final. Now go watch 8 individuals (4 of them being the same through every meet) race each other at that pace with no other incentive than to win the prize money. There is no glory or title on winning a GST meet in 3:50. Not now and not in 10 years.

The same applies for the DL meets. It might be fun to see a couple of slow races, because tactical races can definitely be fun. But in the end times are what really matter. Of course we can see fast times with no pacers as well, but the likelihood of someone running crazy fast is much less likely. It is very rare to see someone push the pace at the front all by themselves because more often than not there is no reward from it (just see Cheruiyot's 1500m Olympic final in Tokyo or Ingebrigtsen's 1500m Olympic final in Paris).

You can't pretend to have the same "rules" for sprints and distance races, because they are very different in the way they are run. Sprints don't need pacers and you always need to run all out in order to win. In distance, there should be the possibility to have pacers if someone is interested in running fast.

Great callout…Probably there should be an exemption to allow these athletes to single if that’s the sticking point for Kishane let’s say.

It is interesting that the distance fields seem much relatively stronger than the short sprints, not sure this is what would have been predicted when the league got set up. While this might be good for distance fans I'm not sure it's good news for bringing the sport to a wider audience.

A few observations on the distance races:

Interesting to see a handful of people running both World Indoors and this Grand Slam meet (like Neil Gourley, Dylan Jacobs and Whittni Morgan). Maybe with Outdoor Worlds being so late this year this first Grand Slam was attractive to sort of extend their indoor racing season before taking a break from racing. Or maybe they'll just race a lot this year.

On the thread about Cooper Teare from a few weeks ago I said I would have liked to see him run US and World indoors to see him in more championship style races. While this Grand Slam meet certainly doesn't have the same stakes as a championship race it does have some of the same tactical considerations, so I'll be interested to see how he does.