Three-time Olympic gold medalist Gabby Thomas is ready for a new era of track.
“I want to exist like a professional sport, and not an amateur sport like we are now,” Thomas said on Front Office Sports Today.
Coming off her three dominant performances in the Paris Olympics, the 27-year-old sprinter says she wants to see a league with consistent competition and pay, and she says she can see that world “on the horizon.” That evolution to launch track into the national consciousness more than once every four years picked up steam in the past few months, with the popular Netflix docuseries Sprint and the first edition of Alexis Ohanian’s Athlos track meet.
“We sparked the interest from the Box To Box film producers to make a show about us,” she said of the makers of Drive to Survive. “We sparked the interest of these people who want to invest in our sport and start these new track leagues because we have such an interesting product. So I really do think it’s the personalities of the athletes that are kind of spearheading this new phase, this new era of track and field,” Thomas said.
Thomas called the Netflix crew that followed her around for Sprint probably her “favorite media people that [she’s] ever worked with.” Season 2 documenting Thomas and other runners in Paris and the Olympic buildup is set to release in mid-November.
The sport has been suddenly flooded with investment, but these individual ventures have left track arguably even more splintered than before. On top of the sport’s existing framework in the Diamond League, there are Athlos, Grand Slam Track—Michael Johnson’s league that will have salaries and won’t have bibs—and Duael, a new head-to-head bracket-style competition set to premiere in March. Ohanian raised questions about Grand Slam Track’s exclusivity rules earlier this month.
Thomas has not committed to Grand Slam Track or Duael, but she did compete in Athlos NYC. She called the event, where she placed second in the 200 meters, a “perfect track meet” because of the entertainment value—including a Megan Thee Stallion concert—that opened it up to newer fans.
“I think what stood out most to me about Athlos was it felt like it was for us. I mean, normally when we go run at meets, the dynamic is that we should be grateful to be there,” Thomas said. “And that one, we really felt like they wanted us there and we were valued as the main product.”
