KINGSTON – US sprint great Michael John­son on Mon­day an­nounced that Kingston, Ja­maica, will host the in­au­gur­al Grand Slam Track com­pe­ti­tion next April.

Ja­maica, the home of re­tired sprint leg­end Us­ain Bolt, will stage the Kingston Slam at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um at In­de­pen­dence Park from April 4 to 6, 2025.

The venue joins Los An­ge­les which had al­ready been an­nounced, with the oth­er two 2025 lo­ca­tions to be an­nounced lat­er this week.

The com­pe­ti­tion will fea­ture four an­nu­al events and has a to­tal of US$12.6 mil­lion (11.8m eu­ros) in prize mon­ey across the events.

“We are thrilled to be bring­ing Grand Slam Track to Kingston,” said four-time Olympic gold medal­list John­son, 57, the league’s founder and com­mis­sion­er.

“Ja­maica has such a strong his­to­ry in this sport. The tal­ent and the love for the sport here make it a per­fect fit for what we’re build­ing.

“It’s go­ing to be an in­cred­i­ble event, and we’re proud to have Kingston as one of our four Slams in our in­au­gur­al sea­son to kick this whole thing off,” he added.

Ja­maica’s Min­is­ter of Cul­ture, Gen­der, En­ter­tain­ment, and Sport, Olivia Grange, wel­comed the news.

“The best part of the idea is that one of the slams will take place in Ja­maica—the home of the best ath­letes. Be­cause of Us­ain Bolt and our too-nu­mer­ous-to-list World and Olympic cham­pi­ons, Ja­maica is firm­ly es­tab­lished as the sprint cap­i­tal of the world. It was, there­fore, an easy de­ci­sion by all in­volved, that Ja­maica should be at the heart of this new league that will cel­e­brate the fastest run­ners in the world,” Grange said.

She high­light­ed how “Grand Slam Track fits well in­to the gov­ern­ment’s de­lib­er­ate sports de­vel­op­ment thrust which aims to po­si­tion Ja­maica as the best coun­try to par­tic­i­pate in, watch, and talk about sport.”

Grange not­ed that this event ex­em­pli­fies the gov­ern­ment’s goal of “mak­ing Ja­maica a venue for in­ter­na­tion­al sports—for com­pe­ti­tion and for host­ing meet­ings of in­ter­na­tion­al sports fed­er­a­tions.”

CMC