Should you’re already lacking the nonstop motion of observe and area on the 2024 Paris Olympic Video games, don’t fear—there’s one other upcoming competitors that ought to be properly well worth the hype.
This week, a number of the quickest girls on this planet will meet for a track-and-field showdown not like some other. Below the lights in New York Metropolis, the first-ever Athlos NYC will deliver collectively the star energy of Olympic champions and world record-holders (plus a significant must-see on the music entrance) in a girls’s-only competitors aimed to modernize the game and acknowledge the athletes.
Intrigued? Allow us to deliver you on top of things on the whole lot you’ll want to learn about this blistering quick new observe occasion.
When and the place will Athlos be held?
Very quickly! The Athlos meet will happen on Thursday, September 26 at Icahn Stadium in New York Metropolis. Situated on Randall’s Island, the stadium provides seating for five,000, and in addition hosts house video games for the New York Metropolis Soccer Membership.
How was Athlos created?
Information of the inaugural occasion broke within the spring when Alexis Ohanian, Reddit cofounder and Serena Williams’s husband, shared that his enterprise capital agency Seven Seven Six invested in girls’s observe with the 776 Invitational. He informed ESPN in April that he began following developments in skilled observe and area final 12 months, and noticed a necessity to deal with the shortage of media protection and broadcast alternatives outdoors of the Olympic cycle.
“Each 4 years, in the course of the Olympics, it is a actually widespread sport, after which all of the protection and the whole lot appears to go away,” Ohanian informed ESPN.
Ohanian, who can be the principal proprietor and founding investor in Angel Metropolis FC and Los Angeles Golf Membership, stated he examined the Diamond League construction—the premiere circuit for professional track-and field-athletes—and started sending messages to athletes to study extra in regards to the sport’s panorama. Within the course of, he related with Olympic 200-meter champion Gabby Thomas, who ultimately grew to become a accomplice in creating Athlos NYC.
“Monitor and area is a really underfunded sport, particularly not in Olympics years, so I do assume having that further useful resource will imply loads to the athletes and can assist lots of people get into the game and keep within the sport which in the end creates a greater product,” Thomas informed ESPN.
And thus, the meet, which was renamed Athlos—the Greek phrase means “contest or trial” in relation to athletic feats—was born.
What number of races will there be?
Athlos will embrace six races: the 100-meter hurdles, 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1500 meters. It’s a tighter schedule in comparison with most elite observe meets, which often characteristic extra occasions and longer distances.
And every race is slated to be an excellent one: A number of legends and A-listers will hit the beginning line in every occasion, together with Thomas and Olympic bronze medalist Brittany Brown (within the 200 meters); 800-meter world champion Mary Moraa and US champion Nia Akins (within the 800 meters); and three-time Olympic 1500-meter champion Religion Kipyegon (within the 1500 meters), amongst different massive names. All in all, a complete of 36 girls will participate within the competitors.
What makes Athlos totally different from different track-and-field occasions?
For one, Athlos goes to be a girls’s-only occasion. Secondly, the meet will reward the most important purse ever for a girls’s observe occasion, in line with ESPN. The primary six finishers of every race will earn prize cash, with the winner taking house $60,000, second place incomes $25,000, and third place claiming $10,000, with $8,000 for fourth, $5,000 for fifth, and $2,500 for sixth place. In August, Ohanian raised the stakes by saying he’d award an extra $60,000 to the athletes who gained gold in Paris.