“These are the best in the world, yet they are suffering financially. Meanwhile, fans who want to watch more track and field outside the Olympics often can’t find it,” said Michael Johnson, addressing the financial issues of track and field. Imagine being a top athlete in 2025, running sub-44 in the 400 meters, and yet, you have to work a full-time job to support something you excel in. This is the condition of some track and field athletes. Johnson has come over this from time to time. The man started Grand Slam Track with the financial aspect in his mind, and now, as the Miami slam concludes, he has once again raised his voice against the financial struggles of track and field. What is he saying this time?
Michael Johnson posted on X about Jacory Patterson, the UPS worker who won $5k in GST. Addressing the tweet, Johnson was asked how the Grand Slam Track fits into the framework of helping these athletes. “I mean, there are many reasons, but they all come back to one thing, and that is that this sport is amazing. It has amazing athletes, and the sport has been underappreciated, undermonetized, undervalued, and it’s underperforming. And who are the victims of that? The athletes,” he replied. Making Patterson the context, the Olympian highlighted in the press conference how he is a top athlete who is running sub-44, which is not easy. On May 3, Patterson delivered a statement performance in the men’s 400 meters, stopping the clock at 43.98 seconds to claim victory.
“And he’s loading trucks, going to work at 4 a.m.,” he frowned. Now that he had an example, Johnson explained further. He said that many athletes in the past 30 years did not get the money to support their sprinting dreams and had decided to quit. The reality of “I need to go feed my family. I need to go make a living. And I don’t want to wake up one day having poured 5 to 10 years into this and ended up regretting it because I never was able to make an Olympic team or world championship team,” hit them hard.
The Olympic Gold medalist grimaced upon the fact that the Olympics are the only way to make money. And even then, running in an Olympic race is never enough. “You’ve got to go and get a medal to be able to make money. Even sometimes that if you get an injury contract’s gone, right?”
The GST director finally answered the question as he said the Grand Slam Track exists to elevate track and field. Speaking of which, what is in the pipeline for the Grand Slam Track?
The future of Grand Slam Track
In the very same interview, Michael Johnson also addressed questions over the future of this league. The reporter, exercising caution while saying that there have only been two Grand Slams so far, asked Johnson about planning for 2026. The Olympian answered, “Absolutely. I mean, I mean it’s just like it’s just like track, you know, like there’s always a danger in getting ahead of yourself. You try to tell yourself not to like when it’s like you know there’s a world championship, yeah, and you’re like looking towards the Olympics like that’s next year. You can’t be thinking about that, but you’re like, but that’s motivating me right now, right?”
Running an event could be challenging for him in 2026 because, other than the world championships, the athletes will be one year closer to the LA 28, therefore, many would want to focus on training. Johnson kept it real when he said that he wasn’t going to get ahead of himself and might want to take advantage of things in the 2026 season. The next Grand Slam track race is within a month, towards the end of May. “Oh, wait a minute, the next slam is a month from now, right, so it’s a quick turnaround for us, and um, so we have to just right now we are starting to focus on Philadelphia 2k,” he said.
The reporter also requested for clarity on rumors that the GST might expand. He also brought to notice, “The good thing is we do have cities reaching out to us saying, ‘ey, you know, we’d be interested in being a grand soundtrack for the city.’” But Johnson mentioned that cities would have to be curated after much deliberation. However, he did promise that they would expand beyond four cities.
Where would you like to see the Grand Slam track happen? Let us know in the comments.
The post “Who Are the Victims?”: Michael Johnson Fears Huge Regret During Grand Slam Track Discussion appeared first on EssentiallySports.
