{"id":503328,"date":"2026-03-30T11:25:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/503328\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T11:25:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:25:06","slug":"my-name-reminds-michael-johnson-of-his-bad-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/503328\/","title":{"rendered":"My name reminds Michael Johnson of his bad days"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 \u201cthrowing his hat in the ring\u201d as a promoter. In a second call a couple of days later, he also welcomed Tuesday\u2019s news that Johnson has repaid $500,000 (\u00a3376,000)<\/a> in advanced funds to help cover the many millions that are still owed to more than 200 creditors. \u201cI\u2019m very happy and supportive,\u201d Bailey said, \u201cthat Michael is doing every single thing that he can.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he can\u2019t hide his dismay at the way the project was presented. \u201cI remember seeing the first advertising and it\u2019s a myriad of Michael. And I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh, my God, are we racing again? Is the 150 coming all over again?\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow for me, if I was involved in that \u2013 and I\u2019ve been a huge investor in startups \u2013 the very first thing I\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if you\u2019re in Jamaica\u201d \u2013 where the first Grand Slam Track meet was held last April in front of half-full stands \u2013 \u201cand you say to the Jamaicans, \u2018Oh, by the way, remember, your guy who lost by a hair at the gate is gonna challenge Noah Lyles?\u2019, then that stadium is sold out, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the many downsides of the GST schemozzle is the negative impression it presents of track and field\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, we could probably name 10 athletes that are the heir apparent to someone like Bolt,\u201d he says. \u201cBut that massive void, it\u2019s not going to be filled by any one person. It\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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 \u2013 people like Carl Lewis, who packed out stadiums \u2013 to be ambassadors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What, then, would Bailey have done differently had he been given a say in GST? He is careful…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[49288,8209,217,101,5438,118,56,54,55,157732,49084],"class_list":["post-503328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-athletics","tag-michael-johnson","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-standard","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-us-content","tag-world-athletics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}