No, I haven't misspelled Slam. I'm just giving my opinion on what I think the whole thing was from the outset.
OK, let's go back to when the GST was announced. In my first article I did make it clear that one of the reasons I did not like the new form of competition was because I have never liked Michael Johnson. In a second article I produced a more serious, technical, argument. And, in a spell of honesty, I wrote that not everything was bad about GST. After all, it's thanks to the special format of this competition that we got to watch Sydney McLaughlin run the 100 m flat. (Please forgive me if I don't add systematically her married surname, Levrone. It is getting too long and I'm lazy. Why didn't she change her name to her husband's name as many female champions have done? Ivanna Spanovic did it for just one season, just to spite future uninformed Athletics statisticians, before divorcing).
So, what happened with Grand Slam Track? I was following the US Trials (an article on them is under preparation) and I was intrigued by the fact that McLaughlin did not participate in her specialty 400 m hurdles. She is in great shape, as attested by her 48.90 s in the 400 m flat, and has a 52.07 s season's best on the hurdles from the beginning of May (which is second only to Bol's 51.95 s). So I decided to have a look at the results of the last round of GST, planned for the end of June in Los Angeles. And I found out that the competition was listed as "upcoming" in the GST page. I started sniffing around and, there it was: the Web was boiling over with news about the GST defaulting on the payment of bonuses.
M. Johnson's startup had promised athletes that it would pay a first instalment of prize money by the end of July. And they missed the deadline. And we are talking about just the 3 million dollars from the Kingston competition, held in April (for which the athletes got just the appearance fees). In total GST owes the athletes 13 million dollars for the three events already held. (And of course, for Philadelphia and Miami, not even the appearance fees were paid).
Enter Michael Johnson. He tried to justify the situation in an interview with Justin Gatlin(!). (If you read this blog, you know what I think about the latter. All in all, I find that he is a fitting company for M. Johnson). Johnson blamed the downturn of the global economy in April that led one of his investors to back out. He stated that they are working with the remaining investors but he admitted that the process is pretty complex.
It's a sad situation for the athletes; champions like Gabby Thomas literally begging for their due. Grant Fischer declared that "if the money doesn’t come through, then no athlete is ever going to want to take a chance on a new idea". And, of course, if they do not pay their debts there is no chance whatsoever for the competition to return next year (despite Johnson's reassurances). The new deadline is now September's end. But one has every right to be skeptic.
And how about World Athletics? After all, Lord Sebastian had welcomed the competition, when it was announced with the words: “I welcome innovation, I welcome external resources”. Now WA has warned GST of a potential punishment. Let's get serious! What can WA do? Grand Slam Track is dead in the water. And, most probably M. Johnson has learned his lesson. The athletes will or won't get their money after years of fighting GST in court. And there is nothing Sir Sebastian can do about this. If he wishes to do something for Athletics, he should recognise the women's decathlon championships to be held in a few days and introduce an official WA championship from next year. (I hope that I am not surprising you with this ending of an article on GST. I wanted to end on something positive and there is nothing better for me than women's decathlon).
No comments:
Post a Comment