Week in Review: Grand Slam Track continues to land elite performers
Gebrhiwet, Seville, Pryce, Holmes, and Zhoya are latest signees for fledgling track tour
With Grand Slam Track’s announcement last week that five more athletes had signed contracts for the 2025 season, the fledgling professional track tour is close to having all 48 of its “Racers” in place for the inaugural four-meet season that will kick off in April with a meet in Kingston, Jamaica.
Hagos Gebrhiwet of Ethiopia, the second-fastest 5,000-meter runner in history, topped the list of the five performers who were announced as signees last week to bring the total to 43.
The others were Oblique Seville and Nickisha Pryce of Jamaica, Alexis Holmes of the U.S., and Sasha Zhoya of France.
While Gebrhiwet placed fifth in the 5,000 in the Olympic Games in Paris, Seville finished eighth in men’s 100 after finishing fourth in that event in the World Athletics Championships in 2022 and ’23.
Pryce was eliminated in the semifinals of the women’s 400 in Paris, but she had a breakout season this year as she lowered the collegiate record to 48.89 seconds in winning the NCAA title for the University of Arkansas in early June before clocking 48.57 to place first in a Diamond League meet in late July to move to eighth on the all-time performer list.
Holmes placed sixth in the women’s 400 in Paris and Zhoya was eliminated in the semifinals of the men’s 110 high hurdles in the Olympics. But he later defeated gold medalist Grant Holloway of the U.S. in the Gala dei Castelli meet in Bellinzona, Switzerland, before winning the Diamond League title in the Memorial van Damme in Brussels.
“Grand Slam Track is creating a platform where the best of the best come together to push the limits of speed and endurance,” Michael Johnson, the league’s founder and commissioner, said in a release. “The level of competition this league is attracting is unmatched, and with these five incredible athletes joining the roster, fans are in for an unforgettable experience.”
Following the inaugural event in Kingston from April 4-6, there will be meets — or slams as GST is calling them — at the Ansin Sports Complex in Miramar, Florida, from May 2-4, at Franklin Field in Philadelphia from May 30-June 1, and at UCLA’s Drake Stadium from June 27-29.
Grand Slam Track’s first-of-its-kind format will pit eight athletes against one another in six women’s and six men’s categories that are broken into the short sprints (100/200 meters), long sprints (200-400), short distances (800/1,500), long distances (3,000/5,000), short hurdles (100 or 110 hurdles/100), and long hurdles (400 hurdles/400).
Each meet will be held over the course of a weekend, with each competitor running in the two events in their designated category to determine an overall champion based on a system in which points will be awarded to finishers on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.
In the case of a tie in the standings, the athlete with the lower cumulative time would be awarded the higher place.
In addition to having four racers under contract to compete in their respective events in each of the four meets, the fields will also include four challengers who will be determined on a meet-by-meet basis.
The prize money structure for Grand Slam Track will be the largest ever, as the overall winner of each category in each meet will be awarded $100,000, with the runner-up receiving $50,000 and the third-place finisher winning $30,000.
The remaining prize money for the fourth- through eighth-place finishers will be awarded on a $25,000-$20,000-$15,000-$12,500-$10,000 basis.
In comparison, the prize money breakdown for the 14 regular-season Diamond League meets next year will range from $30,000 to $50,000 per discipline, with those amounts increasing to $60,000 to $100,000 per discipline for the Diamond League Final in Zurich from August 27-28.
You can click here for more details about the league.
Who’s next?: In an ideal set-up, Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia and Faith Kipyegon of Kenya would be the final two women to be signed to contracts as racers for Grand Slam Track’s initial season, while Americans Noah Lyles, Grant Holloway, and Rai Benjamin would complete the men’s signees.
Alfred won the 100 and placed second in the 200 in the Olympic Games, while Kipyegon won her third consecutive Olympic title in the 1,500 in Paris after lowering her world record to 3:49.04 earlier in the year.
Lyles won the men’s 100 and placed third in the 200 — while competing with COVID-19 — in the Olympics, with Holloway and Benjamin winning the 110 high hurdles and 400 intermediate hurdles, respectively.
While Lyles has expressed appreciation for what four-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson is trying to accomplish with Grand Slam Track, he has also said he would be leery of committing to a league that does not yet have a television/livestream contract in place.
Top categories: As of right now, the women’s short hurdles and the men’s long sprints and short distances are the three categories in Grand Slam Track that have the greatest depth of talent.
The four racers signed up for the short hurdles are Masai Russell of the U.S., Cyrena Samba-Mayela of France, Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico, and Ackera Nugent of Jamaica.
Russell, Samba-Mayela, and Camacho-Quinn went 1-2-3 in the 100 hurdles in the Olympic Games in Paris. Nugent was an Olympic finalist who moved to fourth on the all-time performer list when she ran 12.24 in the Golden Gala Pietro Mennea Diamond League meet in Rome nearly three weeks later.
The men’s long sprints category is currently comprised of Quincy Hall of the U.S., Matthew Hudson-Sprint of Great Britain, Mazula Samukonga of Zambia, and Jereem Richards of Trinidad and Tobago, the top four finishers in the 400 in the Olympics.
The men’s short distances includes racers Cole Hocker and Yared Nuguse of the U.S., Josh Kerr of Great Britain, and Marco Arop of Canada.
Hocker, Kerr, and Nuguse placed first, second, and third, respectively, in the 1,500 in the Olympics. Arop was the silver medalist in the 800.
A second and a first: Chala Regasa of Ethiopia and Catherine Amanang’ole of Kenya won the men’s and women’s divisions, respectively, of the Abu Dhabi Marathon in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday.
Regasa, 27, clocked 2 hours 6 minutes 16 seconds after breaking away from his closest competitors between 35 and 40 kilometers.
Ibrahim Hassan of Djibouti finished second in a personal best of 2:06:33 and Wilfred Kigen of Kenya also recorded a personal best while finishing third in 2:06:47.
The victory was the second in three career marathons for Regasa, who ran 2:06:15 to win the Vienna Marathon in April after clocking 2:06:11 while finishing in fifth place in the Rotterdam Marathon in the Netherlands in April of 2023.
Regasa was always amongst the lead pack during the race as he clocked 29:24 for 10 kilometers, 59:08 for 20 kilometers and 1:02:02 at the halfway point.
He then timed 1:29:14 at 30 kilometers and 1:59:48 at the 40k mark.
He was six seconds ahead of second-place Hassan at that point and he nearly tripled his lead during the last 2.2 kilometers of the race.
In the women’s contest Amanang’ole ran 2:20:34 in her marathon debut after breaking away from her closest competitor between 25 and 30 kilometers.
Dolshi Tesfu of Eritrea finished second in 2:23:47, followed by Aurelia Kiptui of Kenya in 2:26:28.
Amanang’ole, the bronze medalist in the half marathon in last year’s World Athletics Road Running Championships in Riga, Latvia, ran the first 10 kilometers in 33:28 before coming through 20 kilometers in 1:06:40 and the halfway mark in 1:09:56.
Tesfu was only a second behind the 22-year-old Amamang’ole at 25 kilometers. But she had fallen 25 seconds back of her when the Kenyan passed 30 kilometers in 1:39:57 and she was nearly three minutes behind when Amamang’ole came through 40 kilometers in 2:13:12.
Repeat victory caps standout year: Favored Sutume Kebede of Ethiopia won her second consecutive women’s title in a 25-kilometer road race in Kolkata, India, on Sunday to conclude a season in which she won three of four races and lowered her personal bests in both the half marathon and the marathon.
The men’s race saw Stephen Kissa of Uganda hold off defending champion Daniel Ebenyo of Kenya in the final stages of the contest.
The 30-year-old Kebede clocked 1:19:17 over the infrequently run 25-kilometer distance to finish well ahead of second-place Viola Chepngeno of Kenya, who ran 1:19:44, and third-place Desi Jisa of Bahrain, who timed 1:21:29.
Jisa had kept pace with Kebede and Chepngeno during the early part of the race, but it was a two-woman duel for first place when the Ethiopian broke away from the Kenyan after 23 kilometers while on a her way to a time that was 30 seconds slower than her 1:18:47 clocking last year.
Although that time was heralded as the fastest ever by a woman in a 25k race, it should be pointed out that the distance is contested so rarely at the international level that World Athletics does not carry an all-time lists for the event.
In addition, Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya had clocked 1:16:17 at the 25k mark of the Chicago Marathon in October when her winning time of 2:09:56 crushed the previous world record of 2:11:53 set by Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia in the Berlin Marathon last year.
Kebede’s victory on Sunday was the fourth in her last five races as she had followed her win in last year’s contest in Kolkata with first-place finishes in the Houston Half Marathon in January and the Tokyo Marathon in March before placing second in the Chicago Marathon.
Kebede’s 1:04:37 clocking in Houston puts her in a tie for 13th on the all-time women’s performer list in the half marathon and her time of 2:15:55 in Tokyo makes her the eighth-fastest ever in the marathon.
She ran 2:17:32 in the Chicago Marathon after coming through the halfway mark in 1:04:30. However, World Athletics does not include that split, nor the 1:04:16 mark of Chepngetich in the same race, on its all-time list for the half marathon.
“I am very happy to win (here) again,” Kebede said in a tataworld.com post. “I wanted to break the course record, but was a little tired of traveling. I am training for the next year and will participate in the marathons.”
Kissa’s victory in the men’s race was his first win at the international level since 2019 when he won a 15-kilometer road race in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
The Ugandan record-holder in the marathon at 2:04:48, Kissa came through the 10-kilometer mark in Kolkata in 28:42 while he was part of a four-runner lead pack that also included Ebenyo, Benson Kipruto of Kenya, and Haymanot Alew of Ethiopia.
The 36-year-old Kissa was just ahead of Ebenyo when he went through 20 kilometers in 57:50, but 2:02:16 marathon runner Kipruto and Alew were no longer in contention for the win.
Kissa managed to open up a gap over Ebenyo in the final two kilometers of the race and he maintained it to the finish line as his time of 1:12:33 left him four seconds ahead of Ebenyo, who had run 1:11:13 last year while recording the fastest time ever in a 25k race.
Anthony Kipchirchir of Kenya placed third in 1:12:55 on Sunday, followed by Kipruto in 1:13:25.
“When I was running, I thought we would make the world record,” Kissa said. “I had two options: either the first place or should I follow the first group. After the first 2 km, I saw my body responding well and so I ran with the first group.
“I realised that I ran well today. I thought this could be my day. At the last kilometre I was comfortable, and I knew I could do it.”
Two wins for the host country: Spaniards Nassim Hassaous and Carolina Robles won the men’s and women’s races, respectively, in the Cross Internacional Venta de Banos in Spain on Sunday a week after competing in the European Athletics Cross Country Championships.
The meet was the 12th of 17 gold level events on the 2024-25 World Athletics Cross Country Tour.
The 30-year-old Hassaous, who had finished seventh in the European championships in Antalya, Turkiye, won the men’s race in Venta de Banos with a time of 29:38 over the 9.3-kilometer course. He was followed by compatriots Aaron Las Heras and Javier Guerra, who placed second and third with times of 29:45 and 29:46.
Guerra and Las Heras were the two runners who forced the pace for much of the race, but Hassaous broke away from everyone with about 1.4 kilometers to go and he was never seriously challenged after that.
“I’m super happy as my name is now among an incredible list of past winners here,” Hassaous said in a World Athletics post. “As I had expected, Guerra set the pace. I had not felt the best until midway, but then I felt much more comfortable. I felt strong at the bell and decided to attack shortly afterwards.”
In the women’s race, the 33-year-old Robles ran 33:56 over the 9.3-kilometer distance while finishing well clear of compatriots Cristina Ruiz, who finished second in 34:11, and Carla Gallardo, who placed third in 34:19.
That trio and fellow Spaniard Angela Viciosa ran together during the early part of the race, but Robles broke away from the others about 13 minutes into the contest and was 11 seconds clear of Ruiz and Gallardo after the second of four 2.2-kilometer loops.
Robles, who lowered her personal best to 9:22.19 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase during track season, had expanded her advantage to 24 seconds after the third loop while on her way to a large margin of victory.
“I had never thought of winning a Gold event,” Robles said. “Today was a great opportunity and I took advantage, I’m really pleased to take the victory in this prestigious event. Last weekend I was aiming for a top eight place at the Europeans but I had to settle for 16th, so today is a minor revenge from that.”
End of the road: The 2024 high school cross country season concluded on Saturday when the 45th edition of the Foot Locker Championships were held in San Diego.
Senior Tam Gavenas of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, placed first in the boys’ race and junior Beth Leachman of Champion in Boerne, Texas, won her second consecutive girls’ title in the meet that was held at Morley Field in Balboa Park.
Gavenas, who had placed third last year, clocked 15:23.9 over the 5,000-meter course in a race in which Juan Gonzalez of Fremont (Nebraska) placed second in 15:27.4 and Jack Graffeo of Westford Academy (Massachusetts) finished third in 15:34.5.
Senior Max Douglass of Corona del Mar in Newport Beach, the lone entrant from the Southern Section of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), placed 18th in 15:52.6.
Gavenas was in third place after coming through the mile in 4:48.9, but he and Sam Quagliaroli of Fishers (Indiana) were running 1-2 when they passed the two-mile mark in 9:59.7. Tavenas had taken a two-second lead over Quagliaroli at the 13-minute mark after he had surged up the second — and last — major hill on the two-loop course.
Douglass, who placed third in the Division 4 race of the CIF State meet on Nov. 30, was in 16th place when he went through the mile in 4:50.9 and in 24th position when he passed two miles in 10:12.5.
The Midwest Region team, paced by Gonzalez, won the team title with 31 points, followed by the Northeast with 49, the West with 63, and the South with 83.
Leachman had finished third in the girls’ race in the Nike Cross Nationals meet in Portland, Oregon, on Dec. 7, but she was the class of the field in San Diego as her 17:31.0 clocking left her nine seconds ahead of second-place Victoria Garces of Dow in Midland, Michigan.
Zariel Macchia of Floyd in Mastic Beach, New York, finished third in 17:49.7.
Seniors Erika Kirk of Vista Murrieta in Murrieta and Nicole Alfred of Rancho Cucamonga were the two runners from the Southern Section in the race and they finished in 34th and 37th place, respectively, with times of 19:15.0 and 19:31.8.
Macchia, who finished 19th in the Nike Cross Nationals, had a lead of nearly three seconds when she went through the mile in 5:20.6 in San Diego. But Leachman had a two-plus second advantage over Garces, who had finished second in the Nike Cross Nationals, when she raced past the two-mile mark in 11:19.6.
Kirk and Alfred were in 34th and 39th place when they went through two miles in 12:07.4 and 12:22.6, respectively.
Leachman’s first-place finish paced the South Region to a 35-36 victory over the Midwest. The Northeast placed third with 74 points, followed by the West with 95.
Moving on: Graham Blanks of Harvard, who won his second consecutive title in the NCAA Cross Country Championships on Nov. 23, has signed a professional contract with New Balance and will be foregoing his remaining eligibility at the collegiate level.
In its announcement on Dec. 9, New Balance wrote that Blanks will continue to train with Harvard coach Alex Gibby.
The news came two days after Blanks had lowered his personal best to 12:59.89 in the 5,000 while winning that event in the Boston University Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener. That time moved him to second on the all-time collegiate indoor performer list and bettered his previous best of 13:03.78 that had been a collegiate record when he posted it in last year’s Colyear-Danville meet.
It also exceeded the qualifying standard of 13:01.00 for the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
An injury had sidelined Blanks during the remainder of the 2023-24 indoor track field season, but he finished fifth in the 5,000 in the NCAA outdoor championships in June before placing fourth in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials later in the month. He then finished ninth in the Olympic Games in Paris after he had been named to the U.S. team when Parker Wolfe of the University of North Carolina, the third-place finisher in the Olympic Trials, had not met the automatic qualifying standard of 13:05.00.
“I’m thrilled to take this next step with New Balance, a brand that has been a huge part of my journey and supported me on and off the track,” Blanks stated in the announcement. “I’m excited to continue building this relationship as I transition to the professional level and to keep working with Coach Alex Gibby while staying connected to the Harvard community.”
Bypassing her senior season: Sadie Engelhardt, who was selected as the Women’s Prep Athlete of 2024 by Track & Field News, will not compete for Ventura High School during the upcoming season so she can focus her attention on racing against collegiate and professional runners in open competitions.
Rich Gonzalez of PrepCalTrack first reported that news in a social media post on Sunday and Ventura coach Josh Spiker confirmed it on Tuesday.
Engelhardt, a three-time champion in the girls’ 1,600 meters in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State championships, ran in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in the 1,500 meters in June. However, she was eliminated in the first round when a long season that included numerous high-quality races at both the prep and open level had left her past her racing peak.
“I definitely feel that I was on a decline after Portland,” Engelhardt said in a telephone interview last week when asked about her performance in the Olympic Trials.
She had previously stated that “I usually have one race each season when I feel completely wrecked at the end of it. Like I can’t walk away from it. I have to sit down for a while because I’m exhausted and that’s what happened after the Portland Track Festival.”
Engelhardt had lowered her personal best in the 1,500 to 4:08.86 while finishing eighth in that meet on June 9, but she finished 12th in her qualifying heat of the Olympic Trials with a time of 4:19.66 on June 21.
The runner who has made a verbal commitment to North Carolina State University ends her high school career having won seven individual CIF state titles.
In addition to her three championships in the 1,600, she also won the 800 as a sophomore.
In cross country, she won three state Division 2 titles in a row, including her most recent victory on Nov. 30. She also ran the anchor leg for a Ventura team that won the 4 x 800 relay in the state track championships in June.
Besides her 4:08.86 clocking in the 1,500, Engelhardt has personal bests of 2:03.48 in the 800, a national high school outdoor record of 4:28.46 in the mile, and 9:50.69 in the 3,200.
Spiker wrote in a text that Engelhardt will be coached by Matt Hammel during the upcoming season.
Hammel is a veteran youth coach who first started working with Engelhardt when she was in the fourth grade and he and his wife, Joy, were coaching a cross country team at a local elementary school in Ventura.
He and Spiker had worked in tandem with Engelhardt since the summer of 2023.
“She told me last week that she had thought a lot about it and she had some big goals for this year and felt that made the most sense (was more exciting),” Spiker wrote about Engelhardt’s decision. “She will be back with her youth coach and they have a great relationship and I support it. Not sure what her specific goals are this season (we hadn’t had that conversation yet).”
On a personal note: I expect this to be my last post of the year, as I am planning to take some time off to enjoy the holiday season.
However, readers should be on the look-out for a pair of posts on January 1 of the new year when I plan to release my selections for the top 10 women’s and men’s athletes of 2024.
Happy holidays!