What to watch this weekend in Olympic sports

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The winter Olympic sports season is winding down and we're starting to see signs of summer. Here's what Canadian fans should look out for this weekend:

Track: A new league launches

Grand Slam Track, fronted by American sprinting great Michael Johnson, is aiming to bring together the sport's best athletes for four events each year, a la tennis and golf. The new series is offering more prize money than the Diamond League, the European-based outfit that it's trying to disrupt, while enticing fans with a fresh format that sees athletes compete twice over the course of each three-day meet, earning points that determine the $100,000 US winner of their event group.

The six groups are: short sprints (comprised of a 100m and a 200m race), long sprints (200m and 400m), short distance (800m and 1,500m), long distance (3,000m and 5,000m), long hurdles (400m hurdles and a flat 400m) and short hurdles (110m hurdles for the men, 100m hurdles for the women plus a flat 100m for both). As the name implies, there are no field events in Grand Slam Track.

In an effort to get stars competing against each other at every stop on the tour, the league has signed 48 athletes (four in each group for both men and women) as Grand Slam Track "Racers" who receive a base salary in exchange for appearing in all four Slams. They'll be joined by a rotating cast of "Challengers" who are paid only for the Slams they appear in while also competing for full prize money.

Unfortunately, many of the sport's biggest names have not signed up, including Olympic men's 100m champion Noah Lyles of the United States,