Who’s In & Who’s Out? Analyzing Grand Slam Track’s 48 Racer Signings for 2025

On Thursday, Grand Slam Track announced the signing of five more athletes, meaning that we now know the full roster of 48 “Racers” that will compete in all four GST events during the inaugural 2025 season. There are still 48 more “Challenger” spots per meet that will be announced in the coming months, but let’s take a closer look at who, exactly, GST has (and hasn’t) signed now that the first round of signings is complete.

GST’s two biggest stars are both American sprinters: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (the first athlete to sign on June 18) and Gabby Thomas. They are also two of six reigning Olympic champions to sign with GST (the others: Quincy Hall, Cole Hocker, Marileidy Paulino, and Masai Russell). Considering GST is drawing from 16 events (men’s and women’s 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500, 5000, 100/110 hurdles, 400 hurdles), that’s a hit rate of 6/16 on Olympic champions, or 37.5%. GST also locked up the entire 2024 Olympic podium from three of the closest, most competitive events of the 2024 Olympics: the women’s 100 hurdles (Masai Russel, Cyrena Samba-Mayela, Jasmine Camacho-Quinn), men’s 400 (Hall, Matthew Hudson-Smith, Muzala Samukonga), and men’s 1500 (Cole Hocker, Josh Kerr, Yared Nuguse).

However, Grand Slam Track did not sign either of the two biggest track stars in the world, Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles or World 100m champion Sha’Carri Richardson. Both could still sign up as Challengers — Lyles and Richardson are both based in Florida, spitting distance from the Kingston and Miramar GST meets — but their absence hurts. Grand Slam Track’s tagline is “Only the Fastest,” yet it will not have the fastest man in the world or fastest woman in the world (Julien Alfred) as Racers in 2025.

If Lyles and Richardson don’t join as Challengers, it will also be harder for GST meets to attract mainstream attention in the US — they are two of the only runners who are relatively well-known outside of track circles. While Richardson has not spoken on Grand Slam Track, Lyles has claimed that the league’s lack of a TV deal was a significant reason why he could not commit as a Racer.

Team USA’s entire Olympic-champion 4×400 relay squad will compete in GST, led by McLaughlin-Levrone & Thomas (Kevin Morris photo)

“Until I see a TV sponsor, I can’t make a decision,” he told LetsRun.com in November. “Being the Olympic champion, I’ve already come in with a lot of accolades and a lot of things where I don’t need monetary value, but I really need marketing value.”

Also missing from Grand Slam Track: Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Keely Hodgkinson, Faith Kipyegon, Grant Holloway, Athing Mu, Rai Benjamin, Karsten Warholm, Femke Bol, Shericka Jackson, and 2024 breakout stars Letsile Tebogo, Julien Alfred, Beatrice Chebet, Kishane Thompson, and Emmanuel Wanyonyi. Those athletes vary in reach and popularity, but all of them would have been slam-dunk additions had they been interested.

Even armed with $30 million in funding, it was unrealistic to expect Grand Slam Track to sign every major track star in year one of a venture that has never staged a meet before. Below, a few thoughts about the first wave of signings, followed by a breakdown of all 12 GST event groups.

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How many of the top 20 athletes in the world have signed with GST?

A rough way to judge the quality of the GST Racers is to look at World Athletics’ overall world rankings. I filtered the top 20 for each sex so that it only includes athletes who compete in GST disciplines (so no field events, steeple, or marathon). Here is how many of the top 20 will be GST Racers in 2025:

Men’s top 20 track athletes by overall world ranking (minus steeplers)

Women’s top 20 track athletes by overall world ranking (minus steeplers)

Add it all up, and that’s nine of the top 20 men and 11 of the top 20 women committed to GST — though only one of the top five on both the men’s and women’s sides.

Money talks…but it can only take you so far

Richardson is one of the big names who did not sign up to be a Racer with GST (Kevin Morris photo)

It should come as no surprise that 20 of the 48 GST Racers hail from the United States, the most of any country by far (Jamaica is next with five). America has the deepest talent pool of any country on Earth, GST is being fronted by one of America’s greatest-ever runners in Michael Johnson, and three of the four meets will be in the US. And of the 28 non-American GST Racers, 12 were either based in the US or spent significant time training there in 2024. So 32/48 — or 2/3rds of the Racers — are US-based.

Unless you’re an absolute superstar, it’s a no-brainer to sign up for GST if you’re a US-based athlete. The travel is reasonable and the season wraps up more than a month before USAs. Most importantly, the prize money is huge. If you’re someone like Jasmine Jones or Shamier Little, you could spend the first half of the season running college meets for no money or flying all around the world to run Diamond Leagues in China, Qatar, and Norway where you might be able to win $10,000 if Femke Bol doesn’t show up. Or you could stay closer to home and run GST, where you are guaranteed a minimum of $10,000 per meet even if you finish last, plus whatever GST is paying you for a base salary. It’s not a hard choice.

Nationalities of GST Racers

While depth is nice, superstars are what moves the needle in track & field (as far as the needle can be moved, at least). By track standards, the money in GST is great. But clearly, the money alone was not enough to convince some of the sport’s most well-compensated stars such as Lyles, Richardson, and Ingebrigtsen to commit. All of them are making seven figures per year, and while GST’s first-place prize money of $100,000 is the most of any meet, it’s probably not far off what the likes of Lyles and Richardson could expect for an appearance fee elsewhere.

Here are some of the other reasons why GST might have been a hard sell:

• The travel. If you’re not based in North America or willing to spend a few months there, it is not ideal to have to fly in for a meet once every four weeks. Much easier to fly in for just one race as a Challenger (for Nike athletes like Ingebrigtsen and Hodgkinson, doing the LA Slam the week before they are required to race at the Pre Classic would make a lot of sense).
• Less freedom to plan a schedule. Most top athletes are used to a large degree of freedom when it comes to their schedule. GST is paying out all that money so that its Racers commit to competing on GST’s schedule instead. That’s good for fans, who know where their favorite stars will be competing months in advance. But not every athlete wants to be forced to double on the first weekend of April when Worlds don’t start until mid-September. “It’s a lot of racing very early given the year, how long next year is going to be,” Rai Benjamin told LetsRun.
• Doubling at every meet. Your mileage may vary on this one, but Femke Bol’s coach Laurent Meuwly has suggested this is one of the reasons she would not run GST as a Racer.
• Loyalty to the Diamond League. A few athletes (or their agents) have deep connections with the Diamond League and its meet directors and might be reluctant to spurn those meets for a new venture.

Remember, there are still plenty of Challenger spots available

If big stars like Ingebrigtsen, Hodgkinson, Kipyegon, Holloway, Mu, Tebogo, etc. don’t race in Grand Slam Track at all, that is not a great look for the league. But they could still sign as Challengers, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing if they only show up for one or two of the GST meets instead of all four. Heck, it might be better that way.

Ingebrigtsen would make any Slam more interesting should he join as a Challenger (Kevin Morris photo)

One of the reasons the Ingebrigtsen vs. Kerr battles at this year’s Pre Classic and Olympics were so exciting was because those guys don’t race each other all the time. Now let’s imagine Ingebrigtsen signed on as a GST Racer for 2025. Yes, the first matchup in Kingston between Ingebrigtsen, Kerr, Hocker, and Nuguse would be incredible. But would you still pumped for that matchup the fifth time? The eighth time? (Remember, they run the 800 and the 1500 at every meet).

It’s bad for the sport when the best athletes never race each other outside of championships. But when they race each other all the time, those matchups start to feel less special. Somewhere in between, there is a balance to be struck.

In general, breaking up athletes into Racer and Challenger groups is a smart idea. The Racers lend credibility to the series by allowing GST to lock in a few big names. Plus, they offer certainty to the fans: if you want to see Cole Hocker or Grant Fisher race next year, you can already start making plans. But by leaving half of the slots open for Challengers, GST still has room for breakout stars as well as the very biggest names who might not want to commit to the full four-meet season.

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Grading the Men’s GST Racer Groups

So how did Grand Slam Track and Kyle Merber — the man heading up athlete recruitment — do with their first crop of signings? It’s time to hand out some grades.

This is not an exact science, and it’s important to acknowledge that right now, we only know half of the field for each Slam. Some event groups could become much stronger at certain meets depending on who signs up as Challengers. These are midterm grades — but, like in college, the final really determines everything. And final grades won’t be handed out until months from know when we know the exact makeup of each Slam.

So let’s think of it this way: these grades reflect how excited I am to see these four athletes line up and race against each other four times next year.

Men’s 100/200

Grade: B+

This is one of the sport’s marquee events, and GST deserves credit for landing two Olympic medalists. And it will be nice to see the USA-Jamaica rivalry play out in GST with Kerley, Bednarek, and Seville.

Olympic silver medalist Kishane Thompson is an enigmatic talent, but given his injury history and lack of 200m experience, he wouldn’t have been a great fit with GST. Noah Lyles and Letsile Tebogo would be great fits — particularly because you can count on Lyles to heavily promote any venture he’s involved with — so it hurts not to have either of them.

Men’s 200/400

Grade: A+

After a few years in the doldrums, the men’s 400 came on strong last summer, culminating in an all-timer of an Olympic final. GST signed the top four from that race, who also happen to be the four fastest men in the world this year.

Men’s 800/1500

Grade: A

The lack of Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi holds this back from being an A+, but this is still a very strong group, and GST’s North American base meant it was going to be fighting an uphill battle to sign Ingebrigtsen. But locking up the entire podium from one of the greatest Olympic 1500 finals ever — including two American stars — plus the fourth-fastest 800 runner in history makes for a compelling group. Bonus points for getting Josh Kerr, notoriously selective with his races, to commit to doubling at four meets next year.

Men’s 3000/5000

Grade: A-

Obviously Jakob Ingebrigtsen is the big name missing here (though in some ways, the event is more exciting without him since he would have been an overwhelming favorite in every race). Kwemoi and Fisher were both on the Olympic podium this year, though Kwemoi, who has battled injury issues for much of the last six years, carries some risk. Grijalva’s 2024 SBs and Olympic result are misleading given his injury issues this year, but his two 4th-place finishes at Worlds suggest he should be a factor in GST’s non-rabbitted format. Yomif Kejelcha and Berihu Aregawi are not afraid to make big, bold moves on the Diamond League circuit, so let’s hope they sign up as Challengers for a few meets.

Men’s 110 hurdles/100

Grade: B-

Roberts is the Olympic silver medalist and the 22-year-old Zhoya, who came on strong at the end of last season to win the Diamond League final, is a nice upside pick. Allen is a big name, though at age 30 and coming off a third ACL surgery, it remains to be seen whether he can return to his former level. Missing out on Olympic champ Grant Holloway and Olympic bronze medalist Rasheed Broadbell — who is 4-4 lifetime against Holloway — bumps this group down a bit.

Men’s 400 hurdles/400

Grade: C

There are three big names in this group, and GST signed the third-biggest of those names, Alison dos Santos. Convincing Karsten Warholm to come over from Norway four times was always going to be tough, but it hurts to lose out on the Los Angeles-based Rai Benjamin (though he would seem an obvious Challenger candidate for his home Slam). The Tennessee alum Ducos, 4th at the Olympics, was a solid signing.

For the last two spots, GST is betting on young talent. Roshawn Clarke set the world U20 record of 47.34 in 2023 and is still just 20 years old. Caleb Dean did not make the US Olympic team last year after falling in the Olympic Trials final, but he is a freak talent — the first man to win the NCAA 60H/400H titles in the same year. His 47.23 winning time at NCAAs was #2 in collegiate history behind only Benjamin. Clarke, Dean, and Ducos are all 23 or younger (and dos Santos is still only 24), so there’s some nice upside here.

That’s it for our men’s grades. Click here to see our women’s grades.

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• GST announces its final signings: Full roster complete, no Noah, Sha’Carri

Women’s Grand Slam Grades Here