Big match-ups, bigger bucks: Johnson aims high with new league

Sprint legend says four-part Grand Slam Track event, launching today, is what the sport sorely needs

- Sean Ingle

Michael Johnson is one of the few true legends of track and field. Now, though, he is chasing the holy grail. Every four years, athletics is the biggest sport at the Olympics. In between, for most casual fans, it tumbles off a cliff. But Johnson, a four-time gold medallist across the Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney Games, believes he can change all that with a new big-money professional track league, Grand Slam Track, which launches today in Kingston, Jamaica.

"Grand Slam Track is the equivalent of UFC and Formula One," he tells the Guardian. "The research tells us that people watched track during the Olympics because of the stakes, the stars and the stories. So that is the recipe. And at the absolute heart of it is the head-to-head competition between the best athletes. Because that's what people want to see."

There will be four "slams" from April to June, with many of the biggest names in the sport chasing $12.5m (£9.5m) in prize money. But there is also an intriguing twist: at every three-day meet athletes will not only compete in their main speciality but against the world's best in a second event.

"We've got the podium from the Olympic 1500m all competing," says Johnson. "Josh Kerr, Yared Nuguse and Cole Hocker. And in Kingston we've also got the Olympic 800m gold medallist Emmanuel Wanyonyi and the world 800m champion Marco Arop.

They will be mixing it up against each other in both the 800m and 1500m, with no pacemakers. And we've got 10 more groups just like that.

"So the athletes don't just win one race and they are grand slam track champion, they have got to win enough points across two races: one of which is their dominant race, and one of which is not."