Olympians revamp the sport of track with new professional league

MIRAMAR, Fla. — The homestretch of a track is a familiar place for American sprint legend Michael Johnson.

MIRAMAR, Fla. — The homestretch of a track is a familiar place for American sprint legend Michael Johnson. That’s where he broke nine world records. And at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, it was where he pulled away from the competition for two of his four Olympic golds.

Now, near Miami, he can reflect on his new mission: creating a first-of-its-kind professional league for Olympic track stars.

“I’m able to, every now and then, just step back and go, ‘Yeah, this looks really good. This is exactly what we wanted and how I envisioned it,’” Johnson said as he admired the venue for the U.S. debut of Grand Slam Track, the new league he founded last year. 

“In track as a sport, you have the fastest people in the world who don’t have an opportunity to prove it, but every four years,” he told NBC News. “So Grand Slam Track provides that opportunity for the best, the fastest people on the planet to compete and race against one another, and fans are the beneficiaries of that.”

Grand Slam Track is headlined by household names such as two-time reigning Olympic 400-meter hurdles gold medalist and world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and three-time Paris Olympic gold medalist Gabby Thomas.