What, then, would Bailey have done differently had he been given a say in GST? He is careful not to criticise Johnson directly, instead commending him for “throwing his hat in the ring” as a promoter. In a second call a couple of days later, he also welcomed Tuesday’s news that Johnson has repaid $500,000 (£376,000) in advanced funds to help cover the many millions that are still owed to more than 200 creditors. “I’m very happy and supportive,” Bailey said, “that Michael is doing every single thing that he can.”
But he can’t hide his dismay at the way the project was presented. “I remember seeing the first advertising and it’s a myriad of Michael. And I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, are we racing again? Is the 150 coming all over again?’ All the imagery and the presentation of what Grand Slam Track was going to be was 100 per cent him. So he was the CEO, the chairman, the spokesperson, the ambassador, as well as the star.
“Now for me, if I was involved in that – and I’ve been a huge investor in startups – the very first thing I’d have done was sign Noah Lyles and Kishane Thompson, right? Every single athletics fan in the world saw that Kishane Thompson should have won [the 2024 Olympic 100m], and every one of them saw Noah Lyles execute a perfect race and beat him on the line.
“So if you’re in Jamaica” – where the first Grand Slam Track meet was held last April in front of half-full stands – “and you say to the Jamaicans, ‘Oh, by the way, remember, your guy who lost by a hair at the gate is gonna challenge Noah Lyles?’, then that stadium is sold out, right?”
One of the many downsides of the GST schemozzle is the negative impression it presents of track and field’s marketability. Yet Bailey is not overly doom-laden in his predictions. He believes athletics has a solid future, but is still recovering from a natural dip after the retirement of Usain Bolt, whom he describes as the greatest sprinter who ever lived.
“I mean, we could probably name 10 athletes that are the heir apparent to someone like Bolt,” he says. “But that massive void, it’s not going to be filled by any one person. It’s going to be filled with all kinds of people, and all those people have to do things that only one man did, which is break world records, rewrite record books and sell the sport, right?
“It’s definitely going to take a village. But you have sprinters like Noah Lyles, and [newly crowned 100m indoor champion] Jordan Anthony, and you have [18-year-old Australian sensation] Gout Gout coming up. Also, we need the stars from before – people like Carl Lewis, who packed out stadiums – to be ambassadors.”