Amusan, Ofili, Onwuzurike miss out as Johnson names final five to complete list of 48 Racers for Grand Slam Track
Reigning world 100m hurdles record holder, Tobi Amusan, Olympics 200m finalist, Favour Ofili, 2023 NCAA 200m champion, Udodi Onwuzurike and a few other Nigerian athletes will not be part of the Grand Slam Racers following the announcement of the final five to round out the class of 48 athletes signed to compete in all four Slams of inaugural Grand Slam Track next season.
Former US four-time Olympics champion, Michael Johnson launched the Grand Slam Track, set to be the new global home of professional track competition, earlier this year and on Thursday announced the signings of Caleb Dean, Diribe Welteji, Freddie Crittenden, Brittany Brown, and Zharnel Hughes.
They are the final five of 48 signed Racers to be announced, and all of them will compete in all four Slam events during the league’s inaugural 2025 season.
What this means is that no Nigerian track athlete will compete as Racers in the new global track only competition.
Johnson has however not slammed the door totally on the Nigerian track stars as they still have the opportunity to be among the 48 additional ‘Challengers’ that will be announced in due course to compete at the Slams in Kingston, Miami, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.
While the Racers will receive an annual base compensation for racing in each Slam, are eligible for full prize money and will also receive annual contracts, access to the Grand Slam Track content and data services team, inclusion in the league collective, group licensing and new revenue opportunities, plus access to world class athlete support services throughout the season, the Challengers will only be paid a set appearance fee to compete at individual Slams in addition to the prize money on offer.
According to organizers of the event, ‘Racers and Challengers will be assigned to compete in one of the following categories, and will all race in two events during each Slam: short sprints (100m/200m), short hurdles (100H or 110H/100m), long sprints (200m/400m), long hurdles (400H/400m), short distance (800m/1500m), or long distance (3000m/5000m).
‘All competitors’ final placement score will be determined by their combined finishing order between the two races and in the event of a tie across the two events, it will be the athlete who had the quickest combined time across the two races who will be deemed the winner.
‘The winner of each Slam group will take home $100,000 in prize money, and the 8th place competitor will earn $10,000 from the total prize money of $12.6m that will be awarded across the slams each year.
This will be in addition to the base compensation and appearance fees paid to racers.
