Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is happy to be Grand Slam Track’s biggest star at Franklin Field

Scroll through the list of athletes coming to Franklin Field this weekend for Grand Slam Track, and you’ll see a lot of familiar names.

Gabby Thomas won three gold medals at last summer’s Olympics. Kenny Bednarek, Christian Coleman, and Dalilah Muhammad have mantels full of titles. Cole Hocker and Josh Kerr have turned the men’s 1,500-meter run into great theater.

But the eye stops at one name in particular, and she knows it as well as anyone. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, four-time Olympic champion and 400-meter hurdles world record-holder, is the biggest attraction of the meet.

That only describes part of McLaughlin-Levrone’s resumé, by the way. When she set that record at the Paris Games, she broke her own mark by over a quarter of a second. Those 50.37 seconds gave her the top three times in history, six of the top 10, and 12 of the top 25.

The record won’t be in any danger this weekend because she’s running other events. But she’ll feel at home in her first visit to 33rd Street since the 2022 Penn Relays.

“It’s great to be back,” said McLaughlin-Levrone, who grew up in northern New Jersey and ran at the Relays in high school nearly a decade ago. “There’s so much history here at this track, at the stadium, and it’s really just an honor and an experience to be able to get to run there. … You can hear the crowd even when you’re standing in it and there’s nobody there yet.”

The potential for an atmosphere like that is why Grand Slam, run by sprinting legend Michael Johnson, picked Franklin Field as one of its inaugural venues. It could have gone to New York’s Randall’s Island, but wanted Philadelphia to bring the Relays’ famed atmosphere to the pros.

» READ MORE: Olympic 1,500-meter champion Cole Hocker will make his Franklin Field debut at Grand Slam Track

Add that to the cash on offer — including guaranteed pay for contracted racers, a rarity in the track world — and McLaughlin-Levrone is a fan.

“I think it just gives a different aspect to the sport, to competing,” she said. “Competing more frequently, on a basis that the fans can understand and follow, it just creates this really fun dynamic, especially with the points system. I think fans are intrigued, the athletes are intrigued, and I just think this is what track and field needs to bring some more excitement, a new level of competition, and some consistency to professional track and field.”

Coincidentally, Grand Slam arrives in town with USA Track and Field, the sport’s national governing body, in bad financial shape. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that despite a 23-year, $500 million sponsorship deal with Nike — and despite the Los Angeles Olympics being on the horizon — USATF lost more than $12 million in 2022 and ’23. It has been slow to pay prize money and canceled grand prix events it had operated in Los Angeles and Bermuda. (Last year’s Bermuda event was the same weekend as the Penn Relays, which didn’t help with getting big names here.)

Last week, USATF announced the cancellation of the New York Grand Prix, which had been world track’s most prestigious U.S. event for years. Though the governing body said it didn’t officially operate the meet, it still was a hit to the sport.

» READ MORE: Penn wants Philly to be a global track destination. Bringing more pros to town is part of it.

Asked for her opinion of the landscape, McLaughlin-Levrone didn’t mind sharing it.

“I think something like [Grand Slam Track] is necessary, having the backing to be able to put on these meets and to put them on well,” she said. “It’s the first year, and there’s things that are being fleshed out, but just that consistency — I think [in] track and field, this is the first opportunity to have that professional league. Not just one-off meets here and there, but a league that is funded, backed, and continuing to give athletes these opportunities where fans know when they’re going to run, they know what they’re going to run, and it creates a sustainable sense of excitement around the sport.”

That is much of why Johnson wanted to launch Grand Slam in the first place. The circuit’s long-term future remains to be seen, but few people in the sport doubt that the idea is worth trying.

“He understands the sport, he understands the athletes, and I think his effort in something like a GST to help start that process is what we need,” McLaughlin-Levrone said. “I think over the years, there’s been a lot of criticism of what track and field needs to do, but to take action on it, I can commend him for wanting to be a part of moving track and field forward. Especially because he saw at his pinnacle what it could be.”

» READ MORE: Sprinting legend Michael Johnson knows Franklin Field is a track shrine

There’s another big piece. The sport’s biggest names have been genuine superstars. But while Johnson, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and other stars of the past were always in the news, only Usain Bolt was truly mainstream beyond Olympic summers in recent years. What can fix that?

An easy answer would be getting American track’s two biggest current stars, Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson, into Grand Slam. Perhaps that will happen in the future. For now, McLaughlin-Levrone is happy to do her part as the biggest name on the marquee.

“It’s great, not just on a personal level, but I just think for track and field,” she said. “I think in the past few years, some of the stars that have emerged in our sport, I’m grateful to be a part of that generation and to just bring more excitement, more eyes back. … When you look back at the ’80s and you had amazing track and field athletes at the center of sports — not just during the Olympics, but track and field was much bigger — I really want to be able to bring that back, especially heading into 2028.”

This weekend, McLaughlin-Levrone will do so in an unusual way. Instead of running her usual events, the 400-meter hurdles and 400-meter sprint, she’ll be in the 100-meter hurdles and sprint.

» READ MORE: Grand Slam track gives the Penn Relays a new neighbor

The shorter events are different in preparation and execution. But she’s excited to try, including her first professional run in the 100 sprint. (Her past 100 hurdles experience includes, coincidentally, her last Penn Relays visit.)

“I’ve learned in the past three weeks it’s a completely different energy system,” she said. “But I think that decision just comes from the fact that I want to be able to show just that I’m a full-rounded athlete. I love the 400. I love the 400 hurdles, but I also love the 100 hurdles, I love the [100 sprint], the [200 sprint], the long jump.”

The long jump? Yes, McLaughlin-Levrone said that. (But she won’t be doing it here because Grand Slam doesn’t have field events.)

“Some of that is just challenging myself, understanding maybe these aren’t my strong suits,” she said. “But how can I continue to make myself the best full well-rounded athlete that I can before I hang up my spikes?”

That likely won’t happen soon, since McLaughlin-Levrone is 25. But the chance for some fun is here now. So she’ll take it, and hopefully entertain fans along the way.

There will be two days of events at Franklin Field, from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Saturday and 3:30-5:30 p.m. Sunday. That’s a change from the original schedule, which was to be Friday-Sunday, but fans and athletes complained there was too much downtime between races.

Tickets are available via GrandSlamTrack.com, starting at $29 per day for general admission and $40 for a two-day package.

The races will be televised live on CW57 (the CW’s national network is Grand Slam’s main outlet), from 4-7 p.m. on Saturday and 3-6 p.m. on Sunday. The Peacock streaming platform will carry the event online and will have replays available.

Each of the 48 contracted athletes and 48 “challengers” who fill out the field will compete in two events and are classified into six groups: short or long sprints, short or long hurdles, and short or long distance.

Points are awarded by finishing place, and whoever has the most points in the group is the weekend’s winner. A group winner earns $100,000, the contracted athletes get base compensation, and the challengers are paid per meet. The total prize pool over the four-event season is $12.6 million.

The first two Slam meets were in Kingston, Jamaica, from April 4-6 and suburban Miami from May 2-4. The final event will be at UCLA’s track stadium in Los Angeles from June 27-29.