‘I can save track': Johnson shoots high with new league

Grand Slam Track to feature speed stars and cash prizes

- LAWRENCE OSTLERE

Michael Johnson and Steve Gera were having lunch at Soho House in Malibu two years ago, looking out over the Pacific Ocean, when they first sketched out a plan for what would become Grand Slam Track.

“He pitched me this idea,” recalls Gera, a former US Marine who became a coach and sports executive for several NFL teams and FC Barcelona. “I had the ‘aha’ moment of, oh my God, there is actually nothing in between the Olympics that is the best-ofthe-best racers on a consistent basis. Yet this sport is so tremendously popular during the Olympics. Like, what happens?”

Grand Slam Track begins this week in Kingston, Jamaica, with a bold and brash promise to reinvigorate athletics, or at least part of it. An elite field of runners has signed up for the new trackonly league – there are no field events – which will play out across four weekend-long meets in Kingston, Miami, Philadelphia and Los Angeles through April, May and June.

Johnson is the face of the project, a legend of the sport who delivered unforgettable moments gliding around the Atlanta track in 1996 wearing those famous gold shoes. Oddly, his profile is now far greater in Britain where he has worked as a popular pundit for the BBC, and this is something of a comeback into the American consciousness.

His co-founder, Gera is equally serious about the sport, and he is bullish about their ambitions. “We are maniacally focused on having the youngest fanbase of any sports league in the world in the next five years,” Gera tells The Independent. “That’s our North Star.”