🚨 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW 🚨 In his first interview about Grand Slam Track’s downfall, four-time Olympic champion Michael Johnson breaks his silence on the scandal that almost ruined him 🗓️ 8th August ⏰ 8:00AM BST 🗣️ Interview with Oliver Brown

@oliverbrown_tel Sadly GST's failure was foreseeable, basing the events in the US where attendances and TV viewers are way too low to justify the prize money he was offering. Math didn't add up

@oliverbrown_tel Cliff notes: Michael johnson thinks Michael Johnson is a good guy, innovator and victim Setting aside his on track accomplishments, he has delusions of grandeur and lacks credibility in business and reality Bill Ackman is the only reason MJ can attempt a glow up

@jcorrigangolf @oliverbrown_tel Thought this was gonna be one of them Netflix documentary memes for a second

@oliverbrown_tel Certain this will be a load of nonsense.

As an armchair punter since the early 70s, I got in to athletics as a Dad early this century. Coaching, Team Managing, Event Organising. Michael had an uphill battle, largely because the sports governing bodies have let athletics down over a 30-40 year period. In the 70s we would regularly see cross country on the TV on a Saturday during Autumn/Winter. I don't even remember what the races were, but seeing Bedford and Foster etc racing in domestic events was common, so when it came to international events we had people to relate to. TV coverage is pretty poor now. To start with athletics faced an uphill battle. Most of the largest sports were already professionalised in the 70s. Football, American Football, Golf, Tennis, Boxing, F1.... So when the environment changed in the 80s, in terms of remuneration and TV coverage opening up, athletics was already starting at a disadvantage. Then athletics isn't really a sport. My club had 3 Olympians in London. Pole Vault, Hammer and Modern Pentathlon. We also had athletes racing 100m flat, and others in Mountain Marathons. Athletics is a collection of sports under an umbrella. Track and Field, Cross Country, Road, Fell and Mountain. This is touched on in the video, where the question of "why no field" involved. Well the concept of pairing up events as Grand Slam had, how would you pair up another event with Pole Vault? It's easier to pair 400m and 800m. Then there is also the issue that athletics is almost always an individual event. One of the reasons Olympic athletics is so popular, is that the athletes come together under "team GB" etc. The team element and medal table is introduced. The Diamond League is stale. Time trials of athletes we largely don't know. Michael might have been better starting smaller, picking a country like UK with a strong T&F base, and trying to build in some element of team for UK TV. Super 8, nearly 20 years ago was an attempt at that. I don't believe it was done right, but such a concept could work and in a domestic situation would need only a little funding to test concept, and then who knows? Maybe a Super 8 inter-continental competition? Ryder Cup works. Why not T&F Europe v US V Africa V Asia v Oceania?

@oliverbrown_tel Wait until the spivs of #NBAEurope arrive

@oliverbrown_tel Seems another DEI situation

@oliverbrown_tel Interview amounts to: Please BBC give me my job back

@oliverbrown_tel He’s a fraud. Even his career as a runner….EPO 🤴