Coe welcomes Grand Slam Track, cautions over Gout expectations

LONDON : World Athletics President Sebastian Coe says his sport enjoyed a stellar 2024 and is on an upward curve in terms of performance and investment, but he also had a word of warning about the latest athlete to carry the mantle of "the new Usain Bolt".

Coe, who is bidding to become the next President of the International Olympic Committee, returned to his bread and butter to review the athletics year, which of course peaked with 10 days of amazing action on and inside the purple track of the Stade de France in August.

"Paris cemented the sport absolutely at the centre of the Olympic movement in a year of jaw-dropping performances where we had something like 700 personal bests and two or three hundred national records - extraordinary," Coe told reporters.

"If you want a definition of global reach as a sport, then 75 countries had top-eight finishes in Paris where 27 won gold and 43 claimed a medal of some description.

"We had some seven and a half thousand broadcast hours in Paris compared with five and a half in Tokyo and 1,500 in Rio, so on any set of metrics the sport is moving in the right direction. That's provided us with the momentum and a platform for opening new income streams."

One of those areas of investment has bypassed World Athletics in the form of Michael Johnson's new Grand Slam Track series.

The American 200/400 metres multi-medallist and former world record holder-turned pundit will launch his new four-event series in 2025 with a $12.6m prize pot, where 48 contracted track athletes will receive a base salary to compete, along with 48 "challengers" with a $100,000 prize pot up for grabs in each of the combined race events.

The series, which will not include any field events, is seen as something of a