This weekend, 96 of the world's fastest racers will descend upon Kingston, Jamaica, for the inaugural Grand Slam Track meet, which founder Michael Johnson believes will change the face of athletics. 

Grand Slam Track, the brainchild of four-time Olympic gold medallist Johnson, will feature four meets between now and the end of June, with events in Miami, Philadelphia and Los Angeles to come after the Kingston event.

Among the athletes taking part are 32 medallists from the 2024 Paris Olympics, including 200m silver medallist Kenny Bednarek, 100m bronze medallist Fred Kerley, plus all three 1,500m medal winners.

Founder Johnson, who became the only man to win 200m and 400m gold at the same Olympics in 1996, believes pitting the world's best against each other on a more regular basis will provide a major boost to global athletics. 

"I think the word innovation has probably been used way too much in track," Johnson said. 

"At the very beginning, I said to my team, let's focus on getting back to what makes track so amazing – it's just the racing. 

"There's never been a time when you've got the best athletes racing together and there aren't absolute fireworks.

"You think about the Usain Bolt era, and it was only him. Now, we have multiple amazing personalities. Being able to story-tell around a narrative of the fastest athletes in the world is what we're focused on."

A huge prize pot of $12.6million is on offer across the four slams, each of which will feature six track categories. Every athlete will compete in one of the categories, which will consist of two events each. 

The categories are short sprints (100m and 200m), short hurdles (100m/110m hurdles and 100m flat), long sprints (200m and 400m), long hurdles (400m hurdles and 400m flat), short distance (800m and 1,500m) and long distance (3,000m and 5,000m), with each race group featuring men's and women's events.

Athletes will earn points based on where they finish in each of their two races, and those who earn the most points will be crowned victors of their Race Group for the meet. That will bring a $100,000 prize and count towards an overall table for the year.

Johnson believes the event will offer athletes a more frequent taste of competitive action ahead of September's World Championships in Tokyo.

"I think that the athletes have wanted more than just a World Championships," he said. "Most of them have expressed that the reason they've signed up to Grand Slam Track is to have more opportunities to do something great. 

"They know they're going to compete and run their fastest times when they're running against the best. That hasn't happened in the sport before, and that's what the sport needed."

The action gets under way on Friday, in a country known for punching above its weight in track events, and plenty of drama is expected. On your marks, get set, go. 

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THE MAIN EVENTS

Women's short hurdles (100m hurdles and 100m)

Among all the event categories, this women's short hurdles field may just be the most competitive. 

The United States' Masai Russell, France's Cyrena Samba-Mayela and Puerto Rico's Jasmine Camacho-Quinn – all three 100m hurdles medallists in Paris – are taking part, and that race was one of the closest at the last Olympics, the trio being separated by 0.03 seconds.

Men's short distance (800m and 1,500m)

The full podium from the men's 1,500m event in Paris will also feature in the short distance race group, with USA duo Cole Hocker and Yared Nuguse finishing either side of Great Britain's Josh Kerr.

That trio will face a stern test in the shorter race against the Olympic 800m silver medallist Marco Arop, who also holds a personal best of 3:38.36 in the 1,500m from 2023.

ATHLETES TO WATCH

Fred Kerley (men's short sprints)

The men's 100m gold medallist in Paris, Noah Lyles, is not in action in Kingston, nor is Jamaica's Kishane Thompson, who finished second in that event.

That means Kerley – who took bronze in Paris and silver three years earlier at the delayed Tokyo Games – will fancy his chances.

Oblique Seville (men's short sprints)

But Kerley could face stern competition from home favourite Seville, who beat Lyles with a personal best of 9.82 in the 100m semi-finals in Paris, only to suffer a groin injury during the final and finish eighth.  

Another Jamaican, Ackeem Blake, could also spring a surprise, having previously beaten Kerley at the Brussels Diamond League.

Dina Asher-Smith (women's long sprints)

Asher-Smith became a household name when she became the first British woman to become world champion in a sprint event, in the 200m at Doha 2019.

A three-time Olympic medallist in the 4 x 100m relay, Asher-Smith has opted to pair her favourite individual event with the 400m rather than the 100m. 

Johnson has talked up her prospects over the longer distance, and it will be intriguing to see how she fares in a field that contains Salwa Eid Naser, the 400m silver medallist in Paris.