Inside Michael Johnson’s athletics revolution: Olympic legend reveals his superplan to challenge tennis and golf… and the two-word mantra epitomising the American’s ambitious vision

There is a particular quirk in athletics that has long puzzled Michael Johnson. In a sport where milliseconds decide medals, why do runners need to attach a piece of paper to their shirt with safety pins to display their name?

“I’ve asked around to try and find out why that’s still the case but I haven’t gotten a good, solid answer,” the American legend told Mail Sport. “It’s pretty incredible.”

When it came to launching his own revolutionary track league, Johnson had a simple, two-word premise. “No bibs,” says the 57-year-old. ‘You won’t see paper and safety pins, I can guarantee you that.

‘We have the fastest people in the world. We think it’s important that they look like the fastest people in the world, as opposed to the antithesis of fast. Some elements of the sport are stuck in the past.”

According to Johnson, Grand Slam Track is the future. The man with the golden boots at Atlanta 1996 has never been afraid to break convention to boost his profile and that of athletics. But he thinks he has now come up with a concept that will take athletics to a whole new level – and put it on par with sports like tennis and golf.

The Johnson competition will see four three-day events take place between April and June next year, starting in the Jamaican capital Kingston before moving to the US cities of Miami, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Athletes must complete both distances in their ‘category’ at each meet, with 48 stars contracted as ‘racers’ to compete all four weekends, and others signed as ‘challengers’ for one or two weekends.

The 12 category winners at each event will receive £79,000 – more than the £55,000 offered to gold medalists at the last World Championships.

“I think it could be huge,” emphasizes founder Johnson, a four-time Olympic champion and long-serving BBC expert. ‘I think the potential of this sport is enormous. It is the biggest Olympic sport. Every four years it is the most watched sport – and probably the most watched – in the world.

‘It is a sport that everyone understands. It’s perfect for today’s audiences. It’s actually a series of highlights. Two thirds of our races take place in less than a minute and you keep getting more and more of them.

“I don’t think there should be any cuts on the circuit, but there is a great opportunity to grow and offer the fans something they have been complaining about for a long time: a lack of competition outside of the global championships.

“Half of my team is from WWE and that’s huge. Look at what happened to UFC and where they are now. Tennis has four Grand Slams every year. Golf has four majors every year. Look what F1 has done. There’s no reason why this track can’t be on par with those sports.”

Among those who have signed up as racers for the Grand Slam Track are British Olympic silver medalists Matthew Hudson-Smith and Josh Kerr. American stars Gabby Thomas and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone are two of six individual Paris 2024 gold medalists who have joined.

However, much to Johnson’s frustration, there is more talk about the big names currently missing, most notably Noah Lyles. The Olympic 100m champion has refused to sign until a TV deal is completed. He said, ‘If a tree falls in the middle of the forest and no one sees it, has it really fallen?’

In response, Johnson said: “We will announce our TV deal in January but we will go ahead and close our group before then.

“Noah’s timing doesn’t work for us and our timing doesn’t work for him. That’s fine. We will continue to talk to him about being a challenger and maybe next year he will become a racer.

“I know there will be over-indexing of Noah and Noah’s awesome. But I think it’s a disservice to all the great athletes we have.

“We’ve signed 48 racers and we have another 48 challenges to sign. So we will continue to recruit the fastest athletes in the world.”

Among them is British Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson, who has indicated she plans to take part in one of the events. Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the Olympic gold medalist in the 5,000 meters, is another Johnson expected to be a challenger.

“We are excited about the potential of having Keely and many others compete as challengers,” Johnson said. “Fans around the world want to see their favorite athletes compete against the best, and we’re confident Keely absolutely fits that vision.

‘We don’t have Jakob yet, but we’re going to get him. I think he’ll be a challenger in a few of our races this year, and maybe he’ll be a racer next year.”

One complaint about Johnson’s concept is that it is not suitable for athletes who specialize in one event. To compete in her ‘short distance’ category, Hodgkinson will have to run both the unfamiliar 1500m and her favorite 800m.

“I would say there are some people for whom the structure doesn’t work,” Johnson admits. ‘But you can’t build a competition if it doesn’t work for three people, but it works for everyone else.

‘We had a waiting list of athletes who wanted to participate. The athletes are very happy with what we offer them. It is the first time ever that they will have the opportunity to be contractually guaranteed a base salary and an entry into the biggest prize money competitions the sport has ever seen.”

Further criticism surrounded the omission of field events, which Johnson said are not TV-friendly due to the time they take up. Questions have also been raised about why all four meetings are taking place in North America when the original plan was to host phase two elsewhere.

Johnson insists it was a strategic decision and not a venue rejection, despite claims to the contrary from UK Athletics regarding the London Stadium.

“At one point we considered Britain,” he says. ‘We looked at many different international cities that were interested. But we decided for several reasons that the first year doesn’t make sense for us.

“From a broadcast perspective, we want to focus our energy where we feel there is the opportunity to grow the largest audiences, and the vast majority of the athletes we’ve signed are also based here in the U.S. .

‘I think we will end up in Britain at some point and London is clearly our first choice. We have the opportunity in the future to rotate some cities and also expand beyond just the four. But right now we are very excited to focus on this North American market.”

Johnson also rejects the idea that Grand Slam Track is a breakout competition, similar to LIV Golf. He also does not view the league as a rival to World Athletics’ existing Diamond League, even though his meeting in Miami clashes with their event in Shanghai.

“What we do is very different from the Diamond League,” he adds. “It’s a much more exclusive group of athletes that we’re targeting.

“We want to be great partners with World Athletics. We are in constant contact with them. As I wanted to develop this, I listened to (World Athletics chairman) Seb Coe’s comments over the years. He repeatedly said that we need more innovation in sports, athletes need to be paid more and we need to grow sports in the US.

“I listened to it and thought, ‘Hey, I think I can help with that.’ This is going to be hard, there’s no doubt about it. But I’m used to doing difficult things.’