UK Athletics has turned down the chance to host Michael Johnson’s new Grand Slam Track next summer to prioritise the hope of another Keely Hodgkinson-inspired London Diamond League.
Hodgkinson starred inside the London Stadium last summer, running the third fastest women’s 800 metres this century while also breaking her own British record, before going to Paris the following month and winning Britain’s only track Olympic gold.
UKA did hold talks to stage one of four three-day Grand Slam Track events but, after selling out their 60,000 capacity for the Diamond League two years in a row, believe that the July event is building into an annual ‘Silverstone’ moment for the sport.
In Hodgkinson, who is the favourite to win the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year, UKA chief executive Jack Buckner says there is a star who can “transcend” athletics and was “off the chart” in analysis of fan engagement during the Paris Games.
UKA will on Wednesday announce a loss of £1.2 million for the accounting year ending March 2024, which is down from £3.7 million the previous year following restructuring that has led to some off-track international teams having to self-fund.
The expectation is to break even by 2025-26 but there is still caution about putting on too many events.
Hodgkinson is not currently among those signed up to Johnson’s Grand Slam Track format which, in her discipline, would involve racing over 1500m as well as 800m. Josh Kerr and Matthew Hudson-Smith, respectively the 1500m and 400m silver medallists in Paris, are among those committed. The Diamond League is a separate format that comprises 15 one-day meetings around the world.
“We can make the Diamond League like our Silverstone,” said Buckner. “It’s already the biggest one-day athletics meet in the world – and we think it can be the biggest and the best. Some of the ideas that are being talked about will really raise the bar once again in that event.”
Innovations in London could include head-to-heads alongside the traditional programme of events in the same way as the 100m race that attracted so much attention in September’s Zurich meet between the pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis and the 400m hurdler Karsten Warholm.
“That seems quite US-centric at the moment, which is fine,” said Buckner of the Grand Slam Track league, before confirming that UKA had been approached by Johnson’s team. “We had a really good discussion with them. We’re interested in sustainable, innovative events…but they need to be viable too. We think the Diamond League is a product that’s 85-90 per cent the way there. We don’t want to walk away from that… we want to build off that. It’s just at this moment in time, I don’t think the Michael Johnson format quite works [for us] – around the timing and dates as well.”
The first Grand Slam Track event will be held in April in Jamaica, with two dates in America, including in Los Angeles, and a further host country still to be confirmed.
