Olympic 200m gold medallist Gabby Thomas joined the first group of Grand Slam Track champions after running a personal best 400 metres on Saturday in Jamaica.
Thomas placed second in the 400m, combined with her 200m victory Friday, gave her the Grand Slam meet title for her long sprints group. Olympic silver medallist Salwa Eid Naser of Bahrain won the 400m in 48.67 seconds, the fastest time ever run this early in the track season.
Grand Slam Track is a new series of meets for sprinters, hurdlers and distance runners with a total of $12.5 million in prize money. Each athlete races in two different events over a three-day meet.
It is created by track legend Michael Johnson, a four-time gold medallist across the Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney Games. He believes he can change all that with this new big-money professional track league which launched on Friday at the National Stadium, Kingston.
“Grand Slam Track is the equivalent of UFC and Formula One,” claimed Johnson. There are three more Grand Slam meets: Miami (May 2-4), Philadelphia (May 30-June 1) and Los Angeles (June 27-29).
Athletes are divided into six event groups for each Slam: short sprints (racing the 100m and 200m), short hurdles (100mH and 100m or 110mH and 100m), long sprints (200m/400m), long hurdles (400mH/400m), short distance (800m/1500m) and long distance (3000m/5000m).
Athletes earn points based on their two results, which determine champions for each event group for every Slam. Points are distributed from first through eighth place in each race as follows: 12-8-6-5-4-3-2-1. The winner of each Slam event group earns US$100,000 in prize money. Eighth place gets $10,000.
One overall men’s season champion and one overall women’s season champion will be crowned at the end of the season.
Also Saturday, American Kenny Bednarek completed a sweep of the short sprints, adding the 200m to his 100m title from Friday. In the long sprints group, Brit Matthew Hudson-Smith won Saturday’s 200m in 20.77 seconds after placing second in Friday’s 400m behind American Chris Bailey. Bailey was fifth in the 200m, so Hudson-Smith is the Grand Slam champion.
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