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Compiled by David Melly and Paul Snyder

Grand Slam’s Grand Opening 💥

Going, going… gone! It’s a Grand Slam!!

The first edition of running’s version of a Grand Slam—the track meet kind, not the stock-market-plunging kind—is officially in the books. The ribbon was cut, and Kingston, Jamaica, served as an able host for the inaugural professional track showcase cooked up by Michael Johnson. Just as significantly, the checks were cut, as GST handed out over $3 million in prize money across 24 events and three days of competition. The new meet format was given its first test, and generally speaking, it passed with flying colors.

In many ways, the first episode of GST was like The White Lotus (don’t worry; no spoilers): a star-studded ensemble came together in an exotic location with ample wealth to throw around and underwent a potentially transformative experience. Some people got a happy ending, and others didn’t, but everyone left the island with the direction of their lives altered.

While the level of competition was strong across every event group (11 of the 12 Slam champions were World/Olympic medalists), the most memorable moments were those where the GST format delivered race results that would never have happened otherwise. Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Marileidy Paulino went head-to-head in the long sprints—and both got beat by Salwa Eid Naser’s incredible 48.67 run in the 400m. Another matchup of Paris gold medalists yielded surprising results as 800m champ Emmanuel Wanyonyi won the Short Distance 1500m over Cole Hocker and a handful of other world-class milers, but then got beat by rival Marco Arop in his specialty event. 

Olympic bronze medalist Melissa Jefferson-Wooden ran—and won—her first 200m in well over two years to claim the Slam title in the women’s short sprints. It’s a safe assumption that the only reason we got a look at Jefferson-Wooden in any event besides her 100-meter specialty is because it was required, and yet she got a major victory out of it. And it’s equally safe to assume that nobody anywhere in the history of the world has ever picked up $100,000 for running an 8:03 3000m and a 14:39 5000m—until Grant Fisher successfully gamed the GST system to entertaining results, unleashing an especially furious version of his well-honed kick to win what was almost a caricature of a tactical 5000m, then strategically beating the correct foes in the 3000m to land atop the long distance standings.

And for those who always root for the underdog on the starting line, fear not: there was plenty to celebrate beyond first place finishes, in large part because finishing second in a Slam still sends you home with $50,000 in your gift bag. Unsponsored hurdler Dylan Beard proved he can win big races outside of the Armory, taking down the field in the Short Hurdles 110H with a 13.29 run then finishing third in the flat 100m to land in second place on the podium. World Indoor champ Chris Bailey, who won an Olympic gold before signing his first pro contract, channeled his indoor fitness into a 400m win over three sub-44 runners.

One week ago, last-minute withdrawals led to Jenna Prandini getting a very lucrative phone call, as she finished both the 100m and 200m in Jefferson-Wooden’s shadow to take second place in the women’s Short Sprints. At 32 years old, Prandini (long an unsung hero of the Team USA 4x100m squad) is having one of her strongest starts to the season in years—and now she’s getting paid handsomely for it.

But perhaps the most heartwarming storyline of all was 35-year-old Dalilah Muhammad, the 2016 Olympic 400H champion and former world record holder, announcing that 2025 would be her final season then proceeding to finish second in the long hurdles category behind the woman who’s followed in her footsteps, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Muhammad is a generational talent and four-time global champion who’s well-liked and respected in the track and field community, so it’s great to see her receive the recognition and farewell she deserves even as the dominant reign of Sydney continues.

The range of results helped serve as a proof of concept for GST: there were slow results and world-leading times, displays of dominance and surprising upsets. Three of the twelve Slams were won by Challengers; five of the twelve Champions swept both their events—roughly in line with what the competition-focused narrative and “only the fastest” branding promised. Despite the shade thrown on the “global” cred of GST, the Champions came from seven different countries across four different continents.

A common and valid critique of the Diamond League setup is that the fields and format can produce similar outcomes over and over, reducing unpredictability and, with it, excitement. With only a sample size of one Slam, it’s too soon to know if GST will be as variable and wide-ranging in its outcomes as this weekend would suggest, but there’s some initial evidence to support the notion. The men’s 800m was slow and the women’s 800m was fast; the men’s 5000m ended with a dramatic sit-and-kick but the 3000m, with all the same players, was strung out early. Gabby Thomas set a lifetime best in the 400m but Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone jogged a 50.32. Some of this was due to the weather—it was warm and windy all weekend—but as more Slams come and go, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a much wider range of race styles and outcomes than many other professional meets.

Don’t get it twisted: the inaugural Slam was not a flawless debut. The optics of a large, but far from packed stadium on the first day of competition were awkward, to say the least. The heat surely did irk some of the distance runners, and even the most “time doesn’t matter” diehard can acknowledge that a 4.7m/s headwind in a 200m is less than ideal. Whether Fisher’s gaming of the long distance format is a sign of the incentive structure’s success or an intrinsic failure is a point of contentious debate, and in the women’s long distance category, the large gaps in the small field made for challenging television. While we were thrilled to see track and field competing alongside March Madness on sports bar TVs around the U.S., the broadcast did experience some technical glitches and the pre-show could use some tightening up.

But none of these bumps in the road are insurmountable; they’re growing pains reflective of taking a very big swing right off the bat. The Grand Slam has grand ambition, and that’s a big part of why track and field observers are viewing it with such scrutiny. Showing up on day one self-identifying as a competitive alternative to existing formats and a game-changing expansion of the sport is really setting the bar high for yourself—so high that it’s nearly impossible to clear in one leap.

The ultimate success or failure of GST hinges on another one of its fundamental bets: that the format will cause athletes and fans to think more holistically about how these meets connect to one another over the course of the season. If and when one of the Short Distance men takes the Miami 1500m out at sub-3:30 pace, we’ll know it’s with Wanyonyi’s 3:35 victory fresh in the rearview. There are plenty of Short Hurdlers who will start carving out more time in practice to work on their 100-meter drive phase after this weekend. And the pros who came home from the Miramar Invitational empty-handed might be a little jealous of their colleagues’ bank accounts this week.

Similarly, the GST organizers now have a whole weekend’s worth of experience, data, and feedback to begin the process of tweaking the overall package with the goal of getting more butts in seats and more eyeballs on screens. There’s a careful balance to be struck between giving this fresh concept a little room to breathe and sort out its rookie year hiccups—heck, even two days between Friday and Sunday made the scoring format feel a lot more digestible—and recognizing legitimate opportunities for change and improvement. The jury’s still out on whether GST knocked it out of the park, and in some ways, the second Slam may be more indicative than the first on the long-term viability of the league.

Ultimately, Grand Slam’s first at-bat felt more like a stand-up double, but hey—they got on base. And any good baseball-track crossover fan knows that you can’t win the World Series or change track and field with one great weekend; you need to build a foundation of solid, repeatable success that gets you through the season. GST has a runner on second now, and from what we’ve seen so far, we like their chances to score.

Working It Out On The Remix 🔄

Okay, so there’s only been one Grand Slam Track meet so far, but founder Michael Johnson is already asking, “what can we do better?”

One potential option for an exciting twist later on in the season is right in front of our noses. With theoretical short-sprinter Gabby Thomas opting for the long sprints for the Kingston Slam and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone hinting that she may hop, skip, and jump between groups, the precedent has been set that Racers looking for variety in their schedule can always shift over to a different set of events. 

But Thomas and McLaughlin-Levrone aren’t the only ones who’ve demonstrated the range and versatility to flit between categories, and we’d love to see a few other fun changes in Slams to come. Whether it’s to hone new talents, add some variety to their race schedule, or mentally shake off a tough performance, there are plenty of reasons why a Racer may want to mix things up for a subsequent Slam. And while the addition of high-profile Challengers is one easy way to keep things in the GST-sphere from getting stale, another fun way to spice up the recipe would be to allow—nay, encourage!—established Racers to experiment with a new Slam category. Here’s a few intriguing possibilities:

Masai Russell to long hurdles. Those with short memories may not recall that Masai Russell’s biggest claim to fame before her Olympic gold was her pattern of audacious NCAA doubles at the University of Kentucky, where she finished second in the 100m hurdles and 400m hurdles at NCAAs in 2023 and third and fourth, respectively, in 2022. Her last open 400m was a whopping six years ago, but Russell’s run plenty of 4x400m legs over the years and should navigate a flat 400m just fine. 

Caleb Dean to short hurdles. Dean, like Russell, raced a wider range of events than most in college, and he’s less than a year removed from an impressive double-NCAA-title over 60m hurdles indoors and 400m hurdles outdoors. He’s run 13.47 over 110H and 10.33 over 100 meters, but perhaps most intriguingly, he has a 6.52 personal best over 60 meters. He’d be lethal competition even constrained to just the straightaway.

Fred Kerley to long sprints. Fred’s transition to the 100 meters has been so successful that it’s easy to forget that his NCAA title and first three global medals came via the 400m. It’s been over two years since Kerley’s last 400m, a 44.65 season opener in Australia in 2023, but he nevertheless possesses a 43.64 PB and would virtually be guaranteed a victory in the 200-meter half of the long sprints category. It very well might be his easier path toward $100K.

Elise Cranny to short distance. Despite being the U.S. 10,000m champ, Cranny has long shown a fondness for the middle distances, and after what’s likely a disappointing showing in the long distance events in Kingston, the temptation to splash around in the shallow end may arise. With a 2:00.25 800m PB and coming off an indoor mile PB of 4:20.83 a few short months ago, she would certainly be able to mix it up with the middle-distance specialists. Similarly, if the men are going to keep running tactical 800ms, Grant Fisher may be enticed into similar experimentation as well.

Yared Nuguse to long distance. After doing a lot of the leading in the 1500m and finishing a well-beaten sixth in the 800m, Nuguse may be looking over at Grant Fisher’s winnings with a little envy and contemplating a switch from hunted to hunter. And sure, he might get dropped in a 12:45 race, but that kind of 5000m doesn’t appear likely to materialize in the GST format, and he can kick with the best in the world. And the 3000m has already proven a strong distance for Nuguse, the former NCAA and American record holder.

Part of the appeal of the GST storytelling is building up season-long rivalry narratives, and the easiest way to keep those embers hot is to ensure Racers actually race the same people every Slam. But there’s clearly a time and place where part of a Racer’s narrative may be the desire to try something new, and by the third or fourth Slam the addition of new, one-weekend talking points may be a welcome remix to a familiar track (pun intended). So we’ll keep an eye out for more Racers following in SML’s golden footsteps and not assume that every start list is set in stone.

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Young Americans Put The Petal To The Metal At Cherry Blossom 🌸

To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, the 10-mile distance gets no respect (it tells ya). So you could be excused if you missed the fact that three of the more exciting individual results in recent American road running history took place this past weekend in Washington, D.C. Let’s take a look at the performances that have us salivating over the future of American marathoning.

At the Cherry Blossom 10-Mile, Taylor Roe established a new world’s best in a women’s-only race, breaking the tape in 49:53, setting new American records over 10k and 15k en route as well. Taken at face value, that’s an incredible performance. Roe obviously broke the course record, winning by over a minute over a quality field. But what truly stands out from the 24-year-old Puma pro’s race was that she came through 10k two seconds faster than she ran in the 10,000m at the TEN. Roe told reporters after the race that she inadvertently wound up taking things out fast, more or less ignoring her coaches’ pacing recommendations because she felt so good, then stayed there.

That is the kind of toolbox it takes to be great in today’s marathoning landscape: the ability to go unconscious while running hard, to ignore potentially frightening inputs (like, say… PRing at 10k with almost four miles of running left), and to just hammer away. Mixing it up for World or Olympic medals—or even getting within sniffing distance of a podium finish at a World Marathon Major—requires throwing in surges and withstanding attacks alongside women who are capable of running under 2:15. If Ruth Chepngetich is going to take the pace out sub-65 and you want any chance of contending, it sure helps to have had some success when running faster than your internal governor probably thinks prudent.

We’ve discussed before the two conventional paths American athletes typically take to marathoning prowess.

The first path is the gradually sloping one, where an athlete who has hoisted up some hardware as the result of on-track heroics sticks to the oval until they feel they’ve maxed out on what they can accomplish there. Think: Galen Rupp or Sara Hall. They may dabble in shorter road races during a transitionary period where they take a crack at a 10,000m team, but for the most part, there’s a logical build-up then a clean break from track star to budding marathoner.

The second is the way of the road warrior: an accomplished but probably not national champion-caliber distance runner answers the siren song of the asphalt almost immediately after their NCAA eligibility wraps up. This archetype could conceivably continue to set personal bests and find championship success on the track—their fast twitch muscle fibers and youthfully recovering tendons still fully functional—but they also see the writing on the wall. The marathon is where they’ll ultimately butter their bread, so why wait to become acquainted?

As an NCAA 3000m champion while at Oklahoma State, Roe boasts the pedigree of the former, yet seems to be embracing the approach of the latter. Granted, she’s—as far as we know—given no indication she’ll be stepping up to the 26.2-mile distance or leaving the track behind for good anytime soon. But is there a more exciting marathoning prospect in the Young American Distance Running Rising Stars constellation out there at the moment? One could argue that a Grant Fisher or Weini Kelati debut is more intriguing, but the wild west that Roe finds herself heading towards is thrilling by its very unknown nature.

Roe has already cemented her upcoming racing schedule as being very half marathon-focused, her win at last month’s USATF Half championship securing her spot on the World Half team, still on the global calendar but now at a location and date now TBD. Here’s hoping continued success in the 10-13.1 mile range on the roads is a gateway drug to dipping one’s toes in the full marathon.

And speaking of former Oklahoma State standouts, who now train in North Carolina with Puma Elite, and who have recently won USATF titles that ensure they’ll rep Team USA at the forthcoming, mysterious World Road Running Championships… Alex Maier (24) also had a terrific performance at Cherry Blossom, running 45:15, which is a new American best.

Not to diminish Maier’s run, or just how exciting his eventual marathon debut will also undoubtedly be, but we do need to point out that he got second in the race. Charles Hicks (23) beat him by a click, going 45:14. Here’s where things get both confusing and even more intriguing, from a “let’s discuss the future of American longer distance racing” perspective. Hicks, who has historically represented Great Britain, by virtue of his Cherry Blossom victory, was crowned USATF 10 Mile champion, because he ran as a dual citizen, and is in the process of switching allegiances to be able to rep the U.S., internationally. 

Hicks, perhaps more so than Maier or Roe, feels more likely to keep a toe in the pool of track competition, as he’s a 23-year-old NCAA champion with a 13:09.38 5000m PB currently being guided by Jerry Schumacher at the Track Club Formerly Known As Bowerman. But like many future marathoners before him, best races have tended to come on grass, winning his NCAA title on the hills of Stillwater, Oklahoma, and representing GB thrice as a junior at the European XC championships. So who knows!

Two of the most successful American marathoners in recent years, Conner Mantz and Molly Seidel, were 24 and 25 years old, respectively, when they made their debuts. And, in case you’re an alien who landed on this planet yesterday, it’s worth a reminder that their debuts were undeniable successes: a U.S. top-ten all-time performance from Mantz in Chicago, and a podium finish at the 2020 Olympic Trials for Seidel. It’s conceivable we could be a few short months away from the arrival of a generational talent to the 26.2 distance.

It’s perhaps an unhealthy way to appreciate developing talent, through the lens of marathon potential, but hey, until the 10-mile gets some respect—and we know the half has a ways to go on that front!—here we are. American distance fans have one hell of a lineup of talented, likely marathon debutants to cheer for. And until they actually do debut, we also have the ability to close our eyes and envision a whole host of 2:20 and 2:06 performances coming to fruition over the coming years.

More News From The Track And Field World 📰

– At the Miramar Invitational, strong winds bolstered plenty of 100m and 200m rust busters, but the slightly longer events received no such benefit. No matter! Julien Alfred held off Shericka Jackson 36.05 to 36.16 over 300m, and Shafiqua Maloney dominated the 600m in 1:24.61. Miramar’s Ansin Sports Complex will notably host next month’s Miami Grand Slam Track event.

– Aussie discuss ace Matthew Denny moved to #5 on the global all-time list at the OK Throws Series #8 meeting, with his 72.07m heave. And this weekend, the world’s best discus throwers will be flocking back to the winds of Ramona, Oklahoma, to chase some huge marks, including Mykolas Alekna, Kristjan Čeh, Denny (again), Valarie Allman, and Yaime Perez. CITIUS will have boots on the ground and it will be streamed on the Throws University YouTube channel.

– It was an exciting weekend overall for athletics fans Down Under, as 17-year-old Leah O’Brien ran 11.14 in the 100m in the Chemist Warehouse Summer Series, becoming the country’s fourth fastest sprinter overall and breaking an Australian U18 record that had stood since 1968.

– At the Stanford Invite, New Mexico’s Pamela Kosgei followed up a #2 NCAA all-time 10,000m performance at the TEN with another NCAA #2 all-time mark, this time in the steeplechase (9:15.93), and Washington’s Chloe Foerster threw down an impressive 2:00.52 and 4:07.32 double.

– Ethiopia’s Fotyen Tesfay lowered the course record at the Berlin Half Marathon, running a blazing 1:03:35—good for #5 all time over 13.1. The men’s race was won by fellow Ethiopian Gemechu Dida in 58:43.

– In other half marathon action, cross country stalwart Rodrigue Kwizera of Burundi proved his chops extend to the tarmac, running 58:54 at the Prague Half Marathon. Kenya’s Lilian Kasait Rengeruk took top honors in the women’s race in 1:05:27.

– Though the University of Houston’s men’s basketball team fell to the University of Florida in the NCAA title game, the Cougars can take solace in the same thing so many of our readers undoubtedly do when life gets them down—they can probably run a faster mile than most of their adversaries.

– The LA Grand Prix has been canceled, but worry not, Southern California track fans: Grand Slam Track is still set to grace UCLA’s Drake Stadium this June.

– Hearings wrapped up this week for the pending House vs. NCAA case and impending settlement set to drastically change the landscape of college athletics—again, after it was already changed by the introduction of NIL in 2021. The track and field-specific impacts are still largely hypothetical, but could result in rosters being cut dramatically or programs being cut entirely. Stay subscribed for more detailed analysis when the settlement is finalized.

– You know what they say—talent doesn’t go away. White Lotus star and underrated television workhorse Carrie Coon is going viral for showing off the wheels that made her a sub-60 second 400-meter runner in college.

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