7 Thoughts on Grand Slam Track Day 3: SML Reveals ’25 Plans, Fisher Exposes a Flaw in the Format, & Arop Guts It Out

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Grand Slam Track’s first meet is in the books. The start of a new era in track? Or a fun, but ultimately short-lived experiment? It is far to early to offer any sort of grand pronouncements.

The racing, for the most part, was good. The meet offered significant star power and some incredible head-to-head matches with the unprecedented prize money creating far greater stakes than your typical April meet. Moments like Emmanuel Wanyonyi taking down the Olympic podium in the men’s 1500 and the battle between Olympic 200 and 400 champions Gabby Thomas and Marileidy Paulino in the 400 — with both losing out to Salwa Eid Naser‘s 48.67 — are the ones GST founder Michael Johnson will point to as proof of concept.

But the meet was poorly-attended in the Jamaican capital, with the main grandstand never reaching 50% capacity on any of the three days — to say nothing of the turns and back straight, which remained almost completely empty for the entire meet. It did not help that the first event of Friday’s meet was at 5:42 p.m. local time — right around the time Kingston’s streets typically morph into gridlock (meet organizers said the attendance on Friday was smaller than the number of tickets distributed). Expo Jamaica, taking place at the National Arena next door, also meant there was limited parking available on-site, with many fans having to park remotely and take shuttle buses.

But those extenuating circumstances only extend so far. The meet was not marketed well locally. And while the crowds who did show up created a good atmosphere, particularly for the sprints, there is no way to spin all of those empty seats as a success.

“Let’s be honest, we would have loved to have seen more spectators here,” Johnson said. “We think we’ll get that…Once we come out of here, we’ve got a month. We will look at everything. We know there’s lots of different things [to improve on].”

The crowd shots should look more impressive at the next Slam from May 2-4, given that the Ansin Sports Complex in Miramar, Fla., only seats 5,000.

The question moving forward is whether the presence of athletes like Thomas and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and races like the men’s 1500 and women’s 400 are enough to push Grand Slam Track into the mainstream. Those athletes and races were terrific, but most Diamond Leagues feature a couple of massive stars and one or two incredible races as well. GST needs to offer something more to fans if it is to break through in markets — like the USA — where the Diamond League has failed to penetrate.

Below, seven more thoughts on the final day of competition at Grand Slam Track Kingston, where Marco Arop gained revenge in the men’s 800, Grant Fisher played it conservatively in the 3,000 and was rewarded with $100,000, and Alison dos Santos (long hurdles), Ejgayehu Taye (long distance), Melissa Jefferson-Wooden (short sprints), and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (long hurdles) swept their events to win $100,000 each.

1) The weather wreaked havoc on almost every event

It can get very windy during the day in Kingston (remember, Kingston is on the south coast of an island in the middle of the Caribbean). And it is always sunny and hot. That led to some massive headwinds and distance races that were simultaneously slow and extremely spread out.

Times aren’t everything, but no track fan wants to see headwinds of 4.7 m/s — that’s what the women’s 200 runners faced today, with Jefferson-Wooden winning in 23.46, a time that is more than two seconds off the world record. And while no one expected the men’s and women’s short hurdlers to run crazy fast, they never even had a chance with headwinds of 3.4 (women) and 2.0 (men).

Meanwhile Hagos Gebrhiwet ran 7:51 in the 3,000 meters, running what was essentially an even pace (he ran his last lap in 64.15!) and that was still enough to win by the race by more than nine seconds. It’s just not fun to race a 3,000 (or 5,000 for the women, where 75% of the field failed to break 15:20) in sunny, 85-degree temps with a massive wind on the home straight.

Grand Slam Track obviously can’t control the weather. But in Kingston, they faced a dilemma. Either stage the races in the evening where the weather is better for every event and alienate the European TV audience (it’s a 7-hour time difference to Central Europe). Or stage it in the afternoon, which is better for European TV but not good for athletes. GST went with the latter on Sunday. The weather didn’t ruin the meet, but the on-track product suffered on Sunday.

2) Grant Fisher played it smart to win $100k, but also exposed a flaw in Grand Slam Track’s format

Kevin Morris photo

Grant Fisher majored in electrical engineering at Stanford and went on to earn a master’s degree from the same school, which makes him one of the brightest athletes in the sport. But it did not take a genius to do the math in the men’s 3,000 on Sunday. Fisher won the 5,000 on Friday, and the two runners who broke away from the field early in the 3,000 had finished 4th (Hagos Gebrhiwet) and 7th (Telahun Bekele) in the 5,000. Which meant that, under GST’s scoring system which is across two events (in this case the 3000 and 5000), Fisher was guaranteed the $100,000 top prize as long as he finished 3rd.

So Fisher let those two break away and had no interest in catching them. He was racing for 3rd, and that is exactly where he finished.

“I saw those guys go and I saw who it was,” Fisher said. “And I had already done the math. And I was like, wait a second: I don’t need to beat those guys. I need to beat these guys (referring to the rest of the field). I thought if I went out there and hammered against the wind with them, there’s a decent chance that I blew up. And if I stayed with the pack, I was really confident that I could outkick everybody in the pack.”

“…I’m here to win. that’s my job. and that was my highest-percentage chance of winning in my mind. So that’s what I did. I executed, and I got the win. So if people want a different outcome in the race, they need to beat me in the first one.”

Gebrhiwet won the race comfortably in 7:51.55, Bekele was 2nd in 8:00.68, and Fisher outkicked everyone else to take 3rd and the big prize. It certainly felt like a waste to have Fisher, one of the world’s best distance runners, refuse to engage in a race for the win. But it is not his fault. He had 100,000 reasons to do exactly what he did. The problem lies with the format.

The concern going into GST was that running a 3,000 and a 5,000 would just produce two identical races. That is not what happened at all. But another concern was a race like this — a smart runner does the math and realizes it is safer to race for 3rd rather than the win. Granted, the brutal weather conditions also had something to do with it.

Michael Johnson said that he was happy with the format in all of the other events, because most are too short for an athlete to do anything less than race all-out. But he acknowledge that a tweak may be required down the road in the long distance events.

“The distance one is the one that was always going to be a little bit of a ‘how’s this gonna work?'” Johnson said. “We saw it play out today. We’ll see. We’ll talk about it and see what we might do…It worked for the first race. It doesn’t work quite how I’d like it to for the second race.”

3) Michael Johnson would like to see some stronger athletes in future GST distance races

Gebrhiwet won by a ton, in part because Fisher knew he didn’t need to beat him to win the $100,000 (Kevin Morris photo)

In addition to the format, Johnson said that he also felt there was room for improvement when it comes to the quality of athlete in GST distance races.

“I’m not sure our distance groups are as great as they could be in terms of the caliber,” Johnson said. “The spread is a little bit more than it is in other Racer groups.”

Part of the spread today was due to the weather, which shouldn’t always be as bad as it was today (though the next Slam in Miramar will also feature a hot final session, 3-6 p.m. on Sunday). But the other problem, mainly in the women’s distance events, is that the top talent is concentrated in two countries. Last year, nine women broke 14:30 in the 5,000 — two from Kenya and seven from Ethiopia. And yet three of the eight women in the long distance event in Kingston were American. So today’s outcome, where Ejgayehu Taye won in 14:54, Agnes Ngetich was 2nd in 14:59, and no one else broke 15:20, was hardly unpredictable.

This is not an easy problem to solve. The Ethiopians are amazing at running, but a league like GST also wants a diversity of countries in its events to appeal to a worldwide audience. And it is harder to market Ethiopian athletes when many of them don’t speak much English.

4) Credit to Agnes Ngetich for going for it in the 5,000, but she needs to learn to run on the rail

Kenya’s Agnes Ngetich made a bold break early in the women’s 5,000 to string out the field in the hot and windy conditions. She broke almost everyone in the race, but Ethiopia’s Ejgayehu Taye caught her by 2800m, then just sat on Ngetich until kicking away for the win thanks to a 29.99 final 200.

There is no shame in getting beat, but the infuriating thing about watching Ngetich is that once Taye caught her, she ran almost the entire final two kilometers on the outside of lane 1 or inside of lane 2. Initially, it looked as if Ngetich was moving aside to see if Taye wanted to take the lead, but Taye was not interested.

I asked Ngetich if she was running wide to prevent Taye from drafting off of her, but she claimed she ran wide because the wind was pushing her off to the side on the home straight. But she wasn’t running that wide when she was alone in the early laps.

It just does not make sense to willingly run extra distance in a race like this. Taye was clearly better today, but Ngetich cost herself time. Lane 2 is 407.7m around. Since Ngetich was near the lane 1/2 border, let’s say she ran half the extra distance, 3.85m, for the final 2k. That amounts to an extra 3.5 seconds. That’s a lot!

(You can see an example of Ngetich running extra distance below)

Ngetich has made her name on the roads, where she has the world record in the women’s 10k (28:46) and #2 time ever in the half marathon (63:04). Usually for a runner of her skillset — amazing endurance, but no major championship success on the track (she was 6th in 10,000 at Worlds in 2023 and missed the Kenyan Olympic trials in the 10,000 due to injury last year) — she could make the most money by staying on the roads.

Not at Grand Slam Track. She made $50,000 this weekend for finishing 2nd overall, and that is on top of her base contract as a Racer. She said there was one big reason why she committed to the series.

“Just because of money, the huge money we are competing for,” Ngetich said.

Ngetich added that she hopes to run the 10,000 at Worlds this year — assuming she makes the Kenyan team.

5) Marco Arop runs a fearless race and dominates the 800

Arop’s winning time in today’s 800 was just 1:45.13 — no great shakes for a guy who has run 1:41.20. But that undersells how good the performance was. He beat Olympic champ Emmanuel Wanyonyi, winner of yesterday’s 1500, by 1.31 seconds and another 1:41 guy, Bryce Hoppel, by 1.89. And none of the Olympic 1500 medalists Cole Hocker (5th in 1:48.02), Yared Nuguse (6th in 1:48.16), or Josh Kerr (last in 1:50.68) were anywhere close to him.

Part of it may have been that some of those guys had to dig a little deeper than Arop in the 1500 on Saturday. But to win by that much was still very impressive. As the biggest guy in the race, Arop was better-equipped to handle the wind than most. But he also set himself up as the guy to block the wind for his opponents — and no one could take advantage.

“I was debating whether or not I should take it out,” Arop said. “But I figured we’re all in the same conditions, I practice a lot in the wind. So it’s nothing new to me. And I just went for it.”

By finishing 2nd, Wanyonyi claimed the $100,000 prize as overall winner of the Slam. As for Kerr, who had a very rough race, I spoke to him briefly off-camera and he said he had been dealing with a hip injury that severely impacted his training for three months. He said that the hip issue is now behind him, but he has only had one month of real workouts leading into this race and that he expects to keep getting better now that he is healthy.

6) Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is tentatively planning on running the 200/400 in the LA Slam (June 27-29)

One of the great things about Grand Slam Track is that they have signed 400m stars Marileidy Paulino, Salwa Eid Naser, and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. The problem? In Kingston, Paulino, Naser, and Gabby Thomas were all in the “long sprints” group while SML was in the “long hurdles.” So while the first three ran an incredible 400m race against each other on Saturday night, SML was left to dominate a field of hurdlers in super windy conditions on Sunday instead. It was a waste of her talents.

“You watch that, and I would love to see where I fare up in that,” McLaughlin-Levrone said. “It was a fast race. the best of the best were in that race. It really excited me, and it just makes me look forward to the opportunity to line up hopefully with them in June.”

After the race, McLaughlin-Levrone confirmed that she is hoping to run in the long sprints group later this year. Her tentative plan is to run the 400/400H in Miramar, the 100/100H in Philadelphia, and the 200/400 against Naser and Paulino in Los Angeles.

That’s 12 weeks away, so track fans will have to wait a while. But SML’s coach Bobby Kersee does not like putting her in big races unless she is really ready to go, so it’s no surprise he would wait until the final Slam on her home track for SML to move into the 200/400 group. Let’s hope everyone stays healthy between now and then.

7) Sasha Zhoya is a star in the making

Track could always use more personalities, and Sasha Zhoya, who won the short hurdles group in Kingston thanks to a 2nd-place 13.34 in the 110 hurdles and a 10.55 win (-2.0) in the flat 100, is a big one. He was born and raised in Australia (he speaks with an Aussie accent) but his mom is French and his dad is Zimbabwean. He now lives in and represents France internationally.

After winning the 100, he ran down the home straight celebrating, dancing for the crowd and invading Michael Johnson’s trackside VIP box to thank him personally. No one had more fun today in Kingston.

$100,000 MOOD 🕺 @ZhoyaSasha pic.twitter.com/taO7ydS1It

— Grand Slam Track (@GrandSlamTrack) April 6, 2025

Of course, personality can only take you so far. To become a true star, you need talent as well. Fortunately, Zhoya has it. He was the world U20 110m hurdle champion in 2021 and his 12.72 pb he ran at that meet is .27 faster than anyone has ever run over the junior (39-inch) hurdles. He then finished 6th at the 2023 Worlds as a 21-year-old, and though he just missed the Olympic final last year, he went on to beat Olympic champ Grant Holloway in Bellinzona on September 9 (one of just two losses by Holloway all year) and win the Diamond League final (without Holloway) four days later. Still only 22, he is one to keep an eye on.

Catch our live video recap show from Kingston.

Talk about Grand Slam Track on our world-famous fan forum / messageboard:

• Grand Slam Track Kingston Day 3 Sunday Thread:
• Where would Jakob have placed in todays 800m?
• Jakob sitting at home in Norway shaking in his boots… Hocker 1:48.02, Nuguse 1:48.16, Kerr 1:50.68
• Grand Slam Men’s Long Distance DISGRACE
• Hocker/Kerr stock way down after GST. Not good for their brand.
• Grant Fisher Cowardly Tactics
• Grant Fisher Should be Ashamed of Himself
• Challengers for future GST races.
• Fisher post GST 3k Interview