Weekend Preview: What to Watch at Grand Slam Track Miami & Shanghai Diamond League

For the first and only time this season, Grand Slam Track and the Diamond League will clash head-to-head this weekend. Grand Slam Track Miami, the series’ second meet of 2025, will be held from Friday through Sunday. In the middle of that, the Diamond League’s Shanghai/Keqiao meet will be staged on Saturday. It’s a busy time to be a track fan.

Both of these meets are slight misnomers. Grand Slam’s event will be held in Miramar, 20 miles north of downtown Miami — though to be fair, a lot of “Miami” sporting events aren’t actually held in the city. This weekend’s F1 Miami Grand Prix will be in Miami Gardens — the same suburb where the NFL’s Dolphins play — while Lionel Messi‘s Inter Miami play their games even farther away in Fort Lauderdale. And the Diamond League hasn’t held a meet in Shanghai since 2019. The Shanghai DL was cancelled due to COVID from 2020-23, and when it returned last year, it was held in Suzhou, nearly 70 miles west. The Shanghai stadium is still awaiting renovations, so this year’s meet is in Shaoxing, 120 miles to the south.

But enough geography. There is a temptation to argue that this weekend’s double booking is an issue for the sport, two competing series diluting the talent pool and preventing the head-to-head clashes track fans want to see. That is an overly simplistic interpretation. Would some Grand Slam Track stars be in China this weekend if GST did not exist? Certainly. But, more realistically, many of them simply would not be competing at all. In that respect, GST deserves credit for enticing reluctant stars to actually race.

Nuguse, Kerr, and Hocker will square off again this weekend in Miramar (Kevin Morris photo)

Seriously, do you think Josh Kerr or Grant Fisher would be getting on a plane to Shaoxing if they had a free weekend on their calendar? No way in hell. And it goes the other way, too. Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson, who will run the 100m in Shaoxing — his first race at that distance since taking silver in the Olympic final — would not be racing GST if there were no Diamond League this weekend. Most likely, he simply wouldn’t be racing, period.

Joining Thompson in China this weekend are the likes of Karsten Warholm (400 hurdles opener), Berihu Aregawi, Soufiane El Bakkali, and Quincy Hall, who is slated to race for the first time since winning Olympic 400 gold in Paris. Hall, notably, was committed to Grand Slam Track before withdrawing from the series last week.

The top Grand Slam Track events figure to be the women’s 100/200, which features a showdown between Kingston winner Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and Gabby Thomas (who won the 200/400 group at that meet); the women’s 200/400 (Marileidy Paulino, Salwa Eid Naser, World Indoor champ Amber Anning, NCAA indoor champ Isabella Whittaker); and of course the men’s 800/1500 (Kerr, Cole Hocker, Yared Nuguse, Marco Arop, Timothy Cheruiyot).

Breaking down every single race would take forever, so here is our look at the 11 most intriguing events of the weekend from a (distance-focused) LRC perspective.

If you’re a fan of the 10,000 meters (the event LetsRun co-founder Weldon Johnson and I ran back in the day), there is also a new pro event on Saturday at Mt. SAC with a $5,000 prize for the win. It’s called Save the 10,000, and it was created by American legends Kara Goucher and Des Linden, who were concerned about the dearth of elite 10,000m track races and decided to start their own. You can check out the event details here (admittance is free and there is a free RunnerSpace stream) and see the full fields here, but the fields aren’t particularly strong, especially on the men’s side.

Meet details

Grand Slam Track Miami
When: Friday, May 2 – Sunday, May 4
Where: Ansin Sports Complex, Miramar, Fla.
*Schedule/entries *How to watch

Shanghai/Keqiao Diamond League
When: Saturday, May 3, 7 a.m. ET
Where: Shaoxing China Textile City Sports Center, Shaoxing, China
*Schedule/entries *How to watch

Grand Slam Track Miami

Let’s count down our five most anticipated GST events.

#5 Men’s long distance (3000 at 7:01 p.m. ET Friday, 5000 at 4:44 p.m. ET Sunday): Grant Fisher looks to win another $100k

Grant Fisher made a cool $100k in the first Grand Slam after winning a tactical 5000 and trusting he could sit back and outkick everyone for 3rd in the 3000 after Hagos Gebrhiwet and Telahun Bekele broke away early. Fisher was right to trust his kick, and after the 3k, he defended his tactics by saying, “If people want a different outcome in the race, they need to beat me in the first one.”

That is going to be difficult. It’s hard to see how Fisher doesn’t win the $100k as this field isn’t great (nor is the Shanghai DL 5000 — more on that below).

Here is the full field:

1 Sam ATKIN – GBR – Puma.  2 Grant FISHER – USA – Nike. 3 Ronald KWEMOI – KEN – Nike. 4 George MILLS – GBR – On. 5 Dawit SEARE – ERI – HOKA. 6 Cooper TEARE – USA – Nike. 7 Andrew COSCORAN – IRL – New Balance. 8 Amon KEMBOI – KEN – Puma

Gebrhiwet, who beat Fisher in the 3k in Kingston, withdrew on Wednesday due to personal matters (he will be back for the Philadelphia Slam at the end of the month). And Luis Grijalva has been injured, meaning there are just two Racers remaining in this event group: Fisher and Ronald Kwemoi, who beat Fisher for Olympic 5k silver in Paris but was not close to that form in Kingston.

It’s pretty amazing that there will be $262,000 on the line in Miami for men’s distance runners and the second-best African in the field is either Dawit Seare of Eritrea, who has never broken 13:00 in his career (13:07.77), or Amon Kemboi of Kenya, who has also never broken 13:00 (13:06 pb). Of course, maybe we shouldn’t be too critical of non-sub 13:00 guys as Kwemoi has an Olympic silver with only a 13:02 pb.

Plus, some of the non-Africans in the field have been running quite well in 2025. Cooper Teare is back after finishing 3rd in the long-distance group in Kingston, and he is joined by Euro indoor 3k silver medalist George Mills of Great Britain and New Balance Indoor GP winner Andrew Coscoran of Ireland.

Kingston showed it will not be easy to outkick Fisher, but that’s still probably the field’s best bet at a victory — it’s hard to drop a guy who just ran indoor world records of 7:23 and 12:44 this winter. With temps in the mid-80s for the 5,000 on Sunday afternoon, the winning time won’t be fast but it’s hard to imagine it will be as slow as it was in windy Kingston (14:39).

#4 Women’s 800/1500 (1500 at 6:22 p.m. ET Saturday, 800 at 3:42 p.m. ET Sunday): World Indoor champ Freweyni Hailu joins as Challenger

This was already an entertaining event group with Jessica Hull, Nikki Hiltz, Diribe Welteji, and Mary Moraa, and it should be even better in Miramar with the addition of Freweyni Hailu as a challenger. Hailu is coming off a World Indoor title in the 3000 in March, but she is more than capable in the shorter distances as she was the World Indoor silver medalist in the 800 in 2022 and World Indoor champ in the 1500 in 2024. Her bests of 1:57/3:54 should make her competitive in both races.

#3 Women’s 100/200 (100 at 6:52 p.m. ET Friday, 200 at 7:21 p.m. ET Saturday): Kingston Slam champions Thomas and Jefferson-Wooden battle it out

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and Gabby Thomas were both event winners at the first Grand Slam meet, with Jefferson-Wooden sweeping the 100/200 in the short sprints group and Thomas winning the long sprints group (200/400). In Miramar, they’ll face each other, and Olympic 200m champ Thomas should be favored to take the title considering she just ran 11.02 in the 100 in Austin last week.

The wild card is Brittany Brown. She’s versatile, finishing 7th at Worlds in the 100 in 2023 and earning Olympic bronze in the 200 last year. But to win at GST, you need to be able to win at least one race, and she’s not quite as good as Jefferson-Wooden in the 100 or Thomas in the 200. She actually beat Thomas the last time they raced a 200 at Athlos in September, where Brown swept the 100/200 to take home $85,000, but Brown hasn’t raced since so it’s anyone’s guess as to what form she is in right now.

#2 Women’s 200/400 (400 at 7:21 p.m. ET Friday, 200 at 4:35 p.m. ET Sunday): Indoor stars Anning & Whittaker take on Paulino & Naser

We’ll have to wait until the final Slam in LA for Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone to join this group, but it should still be very competitive in Miramar. Marileidy Paulino and Salwa Eid Naser are both back, with Naser (48.67 in Kingston) showing she is in incredible 400 shape right now. They will face a couple of Challengers who were red-hot indoors in the form of World Indoor champion Amber Anning of Great Britain and Isabella Whittaker, who ran a collegiate and American indoor record of 49.24 to win NCAAs on March 15.

#1 Men’s 800/1500 (1500 at 5:51 p.m. ET Friday, 800 at 7:05 p.m. ET Saturday): Olympic podium squares off again

Kevin Morris photo

The best men’s race of the first Grand Slam Track event was undoubtedly the 1500 meters, where Olympic 800m champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi stepped up and beat the entire Olympic 1500 podium from 2024. Wanyonyi would go on to finish 2nd in the 800 the following day to claim the $100,000 prize as Slam champion.

Wanyonyi isn’t racing in Miramar, but the 1500 is still appointment viewing. Hocker, Kerr, and Nuguse are all running again, and even if they were the only guys in the race, this would be worth watching. They will be joined by the fourth GST Racer, Marco Arop, as well as Challengers Timothy Cheruiyot, Peter Bol, Kethobogile Haingura and Tshepo Tshite.

You can be forgiven if you’ve never heard of Haingura (an Olympic 800 semifinalist for Botswana) or Tshite (a 1:44/3:32 guy from South Africa), but Cheruiyot and Bol are both intriguing additions to the field. Cheruiyot, who was 2nd in Monaco and the Diamond League final last year but was only 11th in the Olympic final in Paris, has been training with Tomasz Lewandowski‘s group (which includes Dutch star Niels Laros) early in 2025 and will be running his first 1500 of the year. Bol is coming off an Australian record of 1:43.79 at the Aussie champs three weeks ago.

What to watch for: 

• How much progress has Josh Kerr made in the last month? Kerr, who missed some time due to a hip injury earlier this year, was right in the thick of it in the 1500 in Kingston but well off the pace in the 800, where he failed to break 1:50.
• Can Cole Hocker time his kick right this time around? Hocker was in good position on the last lap in Kingston and had the best last 200 of anyone, but he fell way back on the back straight and let the race get away from him, never quite able to recover.
• How will the 1500 play out tactically? Hocker didn’t want a slow race in Kingston that would play into Wanyonyi’s hands, so he uncharacteristically led through the first 800 in 2:00. The milers won’t have Wanyonyi to worry about in Miramar, but Arop is still there. I’d expect Cheruiyot or Nuguse to lead and for it to go faster than 2:00 through 800 this time.Editor’s add by Robert Johnson: It may be faster but the 1500 guys have no reason at all to fear Arop in a 1500 even if it was 2:05 at 800.
• Bonus question from Rojo: What type of 800 times can the 1500 guys run? Watching the 1500 guys get slaughtered in the 800 in Kingston wasn’t enjoyable as it was windy so the times were super slow. Watching them get slaughtered this time around might be more enjoyable if one of them is winning $100k in the process and the times are faster than 1:48.

Shanghai/Keqiao Diamond League 

Let’s count down our six most anticipated Shanghai DL events.

#6 Women’s 800 (7:15 a.m. ET): Addy Wiley runs outdoor track opener

Olympic silver medalist Tsige Duguma of Ethiopia, who misjudged her pace at World Indoors in March and wound up 6th, opens up her 2025 outdoor season in Shaoxing. She is the favorite, with Americans Sage Hurta-Klecker and Addy Wiley both in the field. Hurta-Klecker was a solid 4th in the 1000m in Xiamen last week, while Wiley, who finished 2024 as the US leader (1:56.83), will be racing on the outdoor track for the first time in 2025 (she was 3rd in the road mile at adidas’ Road to Records event last week).

#5 Men’s 5000 (7:26 a.m. ET): Aregawi set to dominate

This is frustrating. Olympic 10,000m silver medalist Berihu Aregawi, a guy who is always in shape and ready to rock, is racing the 5000 in China against an underwhelming field. The same is true of Fisher in Miami.

How underwhelming is the Shanghai 5000? This race features precisely zero men from the 2024 Olympic 5000 final — and there were 22 guys in that race! To be fair, Kenya’s Nicholas Kipkorir, who has a 12:46 pb and ran 12:49 last year but ran the 10,000 at the Olympics (14th), and Ethiopia’s Getnet Wale, who has run 12:53 before but ran the Olympic steeple (9th), are both in the field. But Aregawi is on a different level.

It’s frustrating because Aregawi and Grant Fisher, his great rival, are both racing this weekend, just not against each other. Travel from Ethiopia to Miami isn’t that much tougher than Ethiopia to Shaoxing, and Grand Slam Track pays more (since Aregawi would be unlikely to finish any lower than 2nd).

So why isn’t Aregawi doing Grand Slam? There are a few possible reasons. It’s worth noting that Aregawi’s agent is Federico Rosa, and so far, most of Rosa’s major clients — Aregawi, Beatrice Chebet, Bayapo Ndori, Marie-Josee Ta Lou-Smith, Letsile Tebogo — have yet to run a GST meet (Daryll Neita, who is a GST Racer, is the one exception). Though perhaps geography is the bigger factor, as many of those athletes  are African-based, which makes it hard to travel to North America for GST. We should get a better gauge on the factors as the season continues as there are still two GST events to go.

#4 Men’s steeple (8:33 a.m. ET): Can El Bakkali return to winning ways?

After going unbeaten in the steeple for almost three years, back-to-back Olympic champ Soufiane El Bakkali has now lost two in a row, finishing 2nd at last year’s Diamond League final in Brussels and 2nd again in Xiamen last week. If there’s a silver lining for El Bakkali, it’s that he opened up earlier than usual (his earliest opener in the previous five years was May 13) and his time of 8:06 was faster than he opened in 2021, 2022, or 2024 — all seasons in which he ended the year as global champion.

This race is essentially a re-run of Xiamen, with the top 15 men from that race all running here as well, led by winner Samuel Firewu of Ethiopia. The only major addition is Tunisia’s Ahmed Jaziri, who finished 5th in last year’s Olympic final and has recently joined NAZ Elite.

#3 Men’s 400 hurdles (7:04 p.m. ET): Warholm runs his specialty distance for the first time in 2025

Karsten Warholm is coming off a 300-meter hurdles world record of 33.05 in Xiamen in his season opener last week. And the last time Warholm ran a 300m hurdles WR in his season opener (33.26 in 2021), he broke the 400m hurdles WR in his very next race.

That probably won’t happen this time. For one, his first two races in 2021 were separated by four weeks, not seven days. For another the WR is much faster now; it was 46.78 when Warholm ran 46.70 to break it in Oslo on July 1, 2021. Now, thanks to Warholm’s 45.94 at the 2021 Olympics, it is almost a second faster.

But the fact that Warholm, after Olympic silver last year, is opening faster than his WR year of 2021 is definitely a good sign. 22-year-old Brazilian Matheus Lima, who was 2nd last week in 33.98, may be his top competition after Olympic 5th placer Kyron McMaster could only manage 6th in Xiamen.

#2 Men’s 400 (8:12 a.m. ET): Olympic champ Quincy Hall races for the first time since Paris

USA vs Botswana could be a very fun rivalry in 2025. Last year’s Olympic 4×400 final between the two nations was a classic, and Botswana claimed first blood in the 2025 outdoor season last week in Xiamen when Bayapo Ndori took down the US’s World Indoor champ Chris Bailey, 44.25 to 44.27. The US has reinforcements in Shaoxing, however, as Olympic champion Quincy Hall — who missed the relay in Paris due to injury — is slated to race for the first time this season after withdrawing from Grand Slam Track. He’ll have to be on point as Ndori and Bailey are already in midseason form.

#1 Men’s 100 (8:52 p.m. ET): Olympic silver medalist Kishane Thompson runs his first 100m since Paris

Kishane Thompson is one of the world’s most electric sprinters — that much was clear last year when he ran a world-leading 9.77 in the 100 and missed out on Olympic gold in Paris by .005 — but he is also fragile. In all of 2024, Thompson finished just three individual finals: that 9.77 to win the Jamaican trials, a 9.91 win at the Gyulai Memorial in Hungary, and the Olympic final.

This year, Thompson ran his first-ever indoor race, a 6.56 60m win in Astana on January 25, and was planning on competing at World Indoors. But at some point before that meet, his plans changed, as Thompson never made it to Nanjing.

The fact that Thompson and his coaches, the Francis brothers, are feeling good enough about his health for him to fly to China in the first week of May is a good sign (he has run one other race this spring, a 4×100 relay leg at the Miramar Invite on April 5).

Because we are so early in the season, the times in the short sprints in the Chinese Diamond Leagues were underwhelming last year and that was the case again last week as South Africa’s Akani Simbine (9.99) was the only man to run faster than 10.13 in Xiamen. The US’s Christian Coleman clocked just 10.18 for 4th while Worlds silver medalist Letsile Tebogo was 7th in 10.20. Don’t expect a crazy fast winning time on Saturday, but keep an eye on how Thompson looks against some top-tier competition.