7 Thoughts on Grand Slam Track Philadelphia: Melissa Jefferson-Wooden & Kenny Bednarek Rule the Sprints, Hello Nico Young, & More
Jefferson-Wooden and Bednarek both ran world leaders in the 100 while Young won his GST debut in the 3,000
By Jonathan Gault
LetsRun.com’s Robert Johnson conducted interviews and helped edit this story from Philadelphia; Jonathan Gault reported remotely.
PHILADELPHIA — Grand Slam Track wrapped its most successful meet yet at Philadelphia’s Franklin Field on Sunday with Melissa Jefferson-Wooden (10.73) and Kenny Bednarek (9.86) both running world-leading personal bests to win the 100 meters. Jefferson-Wooden and Bednarek, both of whom train under coach Dennis Mitchell in Florida, have been the stars of Michael Johnson’s fledgling series so far as both have swept all three Slam titles in the 100/200m group.
In the distance events, Josh Kerr won the 1500 at the second straight Slam, holding off Olympic champ Cole Hocker in a thrilling home-straight duel, 3:34.44 to 3:34.51, but it was not enough for the Slam title as Marco Arop (4th in 3:35.38) took the crown following his victory in Saturday’s 800. Ethiopia’s Diribe Welteji won the 800 (1:58.94) after claiming the 1500 on Saturday to sweep the women’s short distance events, while Nico Young used a sensational 25.61 final 200 to win the 3,000 in 8:01.03 after Grant Fisher scratched due to a slight hamstring issue in his warmup.
The meet was very well-attended for a US professional meet, with the home straight largely full and lively on both days. That represented a big step forward after the first Slam in Jamaica, which drew sparse crowds, and the second in Florida, which was held at a small, 5,000-seat facility in Miramar.
Below, seven thoughts on the weekend’s action in Philadelphia.
Did you miss the action? We have one page where you can watch full race replays as well as get results here.
1) Nico Young makes a statement
When Nico Young turned pro last summer, he didn’t seem like a guy likely to make a big jump in his first year as a pro. Over the last four years, Young has already had the advantage of training at altitude in Flagstaff. And he has essentially been training as a pro since high school, first under Sean Brosnan at Newbury Park High, then under Mike Smith at Northern Arizona University. How much room was left for improvement?
Quite a bit, as it turns out. Young may have already had a great training setup in Flagstaff, but he was still very…young when he left NAU – just 21 when he made the Olympic team last summer. After a long collegiate season, Young ran 26:58 for 11th in the Olympic 10,000 final in August, then came out firing by running a 3:50 mile and 12:51 5,000 during the 2025 indoor season.
His win today in 8:01.03 was impressive for a number of reasons. One is his closing speed: Young ran his final kilometer in 2:20.67 and still managed to close in 25.61 for his final 200. That will serve him very well in championship finals in the coming years. Two is how he looked doing it: Young did not have the prettiest form as a high schooler, but he and Smith have worked hard to overhaul it, and it showed – Young has never looked more powerful than he did in the final 100 today.
It is a shame that Fisher had to scratch today’s race because right now, Young is his biggest competition at USAs (Fisher’s coach Mike Scannell told LetsRun he suffered a slight hamstring issue in his warmup and they did not want to take any risks). Young is already one of the favorites to make the US Worlds team in the 10,000 but he is now also very clearly a threat in the 5,000 as well. The question is whether Young will pursue both events since it would require racing twice in four days at USAs.
2) Sam Gilman continues to impress
The 24-year-old Gilman had a terrific indoor season that culminated with a 4th-place finish in the 3,000 at World Indoors in China, and since then he has relocated to Park City, Utah, where he has joined the Air Force’s World Class Athlete Program and is coached by Mike Scannell. Gilman had some impressive closes indoors and showed some nice wheels again today, going from 7th (last) to 2nd in the last 250. Gilman closed his last 200 in 26.20 to take 2nd ahead of World Indoor bronze medalist Ky Robinson and Miami Slam 3000m winner Andrew Coscoran.
Gilman, who was 6th in the 5,000 at USAs in 2023, definitely has a path to making the Worlds team this year. The key will be for him to measure his effort. It will be tough for him to hang with Fisher and Young if there is a hard final mile at USAs (as there usually is when Fisher is in the race), but if he stays patient, he could definitely mow down some guys in the home straight and grab the third spot.
3) The men’s 1500 continues to deliver as the 800 guys receive a lesson in tactics
The men’s 1500 meters has been the most entertaining event in the sport over the last three years, and with all three Olympic medalists signed as Racers, perhaps it is no surprise that it has been the most reliably entertaining race in Grand Slam Track, despite the absence of Jakob Ingebrigtsen.
While the first 1500 in Kingston featured Olympic 800 champ Emmanuel Wanyonyi stepping up and schooling the milers, order has been restored in Miramar and Kingston as Marco Arop has been repeatedly reminded that the 800 and 1500 are not the same. On Saturday, Arop dominated the 800 with a negative-split 1:43.38 victory, but he may have been a little overconfident today as he made the same mistake he did in Miramar, making a huge move with 300 meters to go only to fade in the final 100.
In Miramar, Arop split 26.93 from 1200 to 1400, then 14.00 as he faded from 2nd to 7th in the final 100. Arop said he knew he had to do a better job of staying patient today; instead he went even harder, splitting 26.18 from 1200 to 1400 only to close in 14.42, going from 1st to 4th in the home straight. World Indoor 800 champ Josh Hoey wound up getting run down as well, as he faded from 2nd to 5th (3:35.45) in the final 200.
The good news for Arop is he still ran a 3:35.38 personal best and took home $100,000 as the Slam champion. But if he actually wants to win the 1500 in the final Slam in LA, he may be better served waiting a little later to kick. It is exceptionally hard to beat a 1500 field of this caliber by trying to drop them with 300 to go.
The battle for the win today came down to Olympic gold and silver medalists Josh Kerr and Cole Hocker, and it played out the opposite to how things went down in Paris 10 months ago. This time it was Hocker taking the lead in the home straight, only for Kerr to come over the top and pass him for the win in the final 30m.
Hocker actually played this one better than Kerr tactically as he saved energy by staying on the rail on the final turn and did a good job waiting to strike for the lead coming off the turn. Kerr, meanwhile, was coming from farther back; he was 6th with 120 to go and had to run way wide – almost to lane 3 – to move up on the final turn.
Phil Bond photo
It wound up as a very close finish, Kerr taking it in 3:34.44 to Hocker’s 3:34.51, but the main difference is that Kerr is fitter and sharper at this point in the season. Since he has the bye to Worlds as the defending champion, he doesn’t need to worry about the British championships, which means Kerr can attack some of these races in a way Hocker cannot. Plus Hocker is trying to qualify in both the 1500 and 5,000 at USAs this year, which means he has to keep his strength up rather than getting sharp right now. For him to come this close to Kerr – and beat everyone else – is a good result, even if it means Hocker is now 0-6 in 1500s since his Olympic victory.
Hocker still managed to beat fellow American Olympic medalist Yared Nuguse, who had a rare off race and finished 6th. It marked just the second 1500/mile race since June 2022 where Nuguse finished outside of the top 5 (the other was last year’s Diamond League final, where he was also 6th).
Kerr admitted afterwards on the broadcast that he didn’t run the smoothest race tactically, but it didn’t come back to bite him today.
“I was pretty far back doing stuff that I probably shouldn’t have been,” Kerr said. “I’m giving some of the best closers in the world a couple meters before the home stretch.”
Surprisingly, Arop didn’t think he went too hard, too soon and said afterwards he did not regret his tactics. Hocker, on the other hand, told us he knew as a 1500 runner that no one could sustain the type of kick that Arop unleashed from that far out.
Marco Arop post-race
Josh Kerr post-race
Cole Hocker post-race
4) Melissa Jefferson-Wooden runs the sprint double of the year so far
Phil Bond photo
Olympic 100m bronze medalist Melissa Jefferson-Wooden has been one of the stars of Grand Slam Track’s inaugural season, racking up $300,000 in prize money so far by winning the Slam titles in Kingston, Miramar, and now Philadelphia. And her double this weekend was her most impressive yet.
It began on Saturday when she ran a personal best 21.99 to take down Olympic champ Gabby Thomas to win the 200. Before 2025, Jefferson-Wooden’s 200m best was only 22.46, but she has now run 22.15 and 21.99 in her last two meets.
In the 100 today, she was even better, taking .07 off her pb from the Olympic Trials last year to run 10.73 and crush the competition on a day where no one else could break 11 seconds. Jefferson-Wooden is now tied for 10th on the world all-time list, and her pb is just .01 slower than that of Olympic champ Julien Alfred. MJW is definitely looking like a threat for 100m gold in Tokyo this year…the question is whether she can keep up this sort of form for another three months.
Jefferson-Wooden was only offered two scholarships coming out of high school (she wound up attending Coastal Carolina) and is now one of the fastest women on Earth. The low-key Jefferson-Wooden spoke to us at length after the race and touched on what it is like to train with a high-profile star like Sha’Carri on a daily basis.
5) Kenny Bednarek stays scorching hot with 9.86 100m pb and world leader
With Alison dos Santos and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone both suffering defeats in Philadelphia, Kenny Bednarek is now the only athlete in Grand Slam Track with a perfect 6-for-6 record after three Slams.
He is winning in style, as well. On Saturday, he ran 19.95 with zero wind to win the 200 by a comical .55 of a second. And in the 100 on Sunday, he ran a pb of 9.86 (+0.8 wind) to tie for the fastest time in the world this year. Bednarek has been Mr. Silver recently, with 2nd-place finishes in the 200 at the 2021 and 2024 Olympics and the 2022 Worlds. Is 2025 the year the 26-year-old finally stands atop the podium?
6) Welteji sweeps 800/1500 as Americans struggle
This weekend in Philadelphia represented a big opportunity for the Americans in the women’s short distance group, and it will go down as a big swing and a miss. After defeating fellow Racers Diribe Welteji and Jessica Hull in the 1500 at the last Slam in Miramar and finishing 2nd overall, Nikki Hiltz could not build on that success in the 1500 in Philadelphia, struggling with a faster pace after Hull made a hard mid-race move. Hiltz (4:00.54) was 3rd but never in the race for the win, finishing 2.50 seconds back of winner Welteji (3:58.04).
Then in the 800 today, Addy Wiley (last year’s US leader) and Nia Akins (last year’s US champion) both had an opportunity to win as the only other 800 specialist in the field, Mary Moraa, has not been in good form this year. But Wiley, perhaps tired after traveling to China and Morocco for Diamond Leagues in May, pushed too hard, too early by taking the lead at the bell and ran out of gas, fading to 6th in 2:00.93 after splitting 57.46-63.47.
Still, that was better than Akins, who was dropped badly in the 1500 and DNF’d on Saturday, then got dropped by 400 in the 800 today and wound up jogging it in for a last-place 2:13.07 (though she still receives a $2,000 appearance fee and $10,000 in prize money). During the indoor season, Akins said she dealt with panic attacks during races, which led to her dropping out of a race at Boston University. It’s not clear whether that happened again in Philadelphia (we didn’t see her in the media mixed zone), but she was clearly nowhere near her best this weekend.
Hull nearly won the 800 today despite being way back at 200m. She said she saw her split (28-mid) and knew she was fine and that everyone else had gone out too hard.
7) This was the best crowd/atmosphere yet at Grand Slam Track
This weekend was a big test for Grand Slam Track. In each of the first two Slams, the Friday session was easily the least-attended, and organizers made the decision to scrap it entirely and condense the meet to two days in Philadelphia. Grand Slam Track wouldn’t have any excuses for poor attendance this weekend – and a small crowd would not have looked good in cavernous Franklin Field.
Fortunately for GST, the fans did show up in Philly. The home straight was mostly full both days, and even the back straight featured a decent number of fans. We were told that at least 10,000 seats were sold for each day (not counting comps). The only professional meets in the US that draw crowds of that size are the Prefontaine Classic and the Olympic Trials. It made for a good atmosphere in Franklin Field and looked good on the broadcast, too.
GST founder Michael Johnson has talked about year one being one of growth and progress for Grand Slam Track, and this was definitely progress. They put on a pro track meet with a number of US stars in a major American city, and a bunch of people turned out to watch. The challenge now will be to do the same at the final Slam in Los Angeles, but this will give them good momentum.
Johnson confirmed to LetsRun.com that the LA Meet will be two days like this one. He also said it’s hard to imagine they won’t come back to Philly next year but said nothing is official.
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