Rory & Mal Don't Know Ball | Michael Johnson

On this episode of Rory & Mal Don't Know Ball, the guys are joined by 12x gold medalist and Track & Field legend, Michael Johnson. Rory and Mal get into the 1996 Olympics, the story behind the gold spikes, and about the time Michael met 2-Pac in a club. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
All right, Rory, welcome back to another episode of Rory
Maul Don't know Ball. Today we're gonna make a little
pivot though. I'm sure you're happy about this.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
One, so excited.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
You were an aspiring track star in your eye day.

Speaker 4 (00:23):
First of all Division one track runner I didn't take
to college because he's fucking less.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I'm not knocking you. I'm not knocking.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I just think today we are in the presence of
track Royalty. I mean, four timeg medalist, eight time world champion,
one of the fastest men ever. Yes, I tried to
mimic his style when I was younger, when I used
to run from the cops, Rory, but they caught me.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
I couldn't get a down packed.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Today we are joined by the legendary, the iconic mister
Michael Johnson.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
How are you doing certain, Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Today, good man. Good to be with you guys.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Now, we really appreciate it and like listen with our
hold on stuff. Go ahead, Mike, what is the skincare routine?
You look amazing, man, Will What is the routine? What
is your diet? What are you doing?

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Man? It's lighting and filter man.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Respect the honesty.

Speaker 5 (01:15):
I say, man, you know, just just good clean living man,
you know, good quality living man.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Do you still do you still work out every day?
Like is your is your regiment still? Like you still
get some type of workout in every day now that
you're not really competing anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
So I work out.

Speaker 5 (01:30):
But like people get really confused when it comes to
track because track is such a fundamental sport, sport, you know,
fundamental to everything else because it's running.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, the track is just like football, just like baseball.

Speaker 5 (01:41):
Just like so, like you know what you did as
a baseball player, as a football player practicing, Now that
you're fifty seven years old, like I am, you're not
doing that thing anymore. You're doing just going into the
dem getting some weights, getting some cardio.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
So I do do that most days of the week,
my three or four day for five days a week. Uh huh.
But yeah, it doesn't look anything anywhere close to what.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
I was doing, even at thirty four. This was actually
a few years ago. I tried to do some hurdle
drills just to warm up, played myself immediately. It wasn't
My leg doesn't go up the same way.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
I ran for it, just like you.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Okay, yeah, well not just like you, but like he
ran the same event that you know, we.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
Ran the same lap. First of all, with my skin
was pretty good. Forty eight eight was my my pr Okay,
where'd you go to college? Saint Peter's College was my
prime and then I got kicked out. But I would
you know, I think I would have made the Olympics
had I not punched the r in the face.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
No, you definitely would have. Yeah, I could see that.
I can see that.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
You definitely would have made that. That's what stopped you
from making the Olympic team.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
I mean, Mike, I did.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
I turned down Baylor to go to a commuter school
in Jersey City. Yeah, Baylor was Bill was definitely looking
at Taylor and wanted me. But I was like, you know, now,
I'm gonna go transform the four hundred shit over here.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
If that, if that, if that was true, that would
be one of the worst.

Speaker 5 (03:16):
See, they would also indicate, yeah, why you didn't make that.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
Look at Yeah, they went with Jeremy Warner.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Awful decision, but they went with Jeremy Warner.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
You know.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
I got into track actually my junior year of high
school because I was playing football and my coach dragged
me to the track in the off season, and that's
when I found out I was even okay at this.
When did you find out as a kid that you
were fast, Because there's a difference between just like running
in the neighborhood and then finding out you could really
do his track ship.

Speaker 5 (03:49):
Yeah, I mean, so those are tually different things. So
I knew I was fast when I was a kid
when growing up. So I'm the younger step five, my
other fourth seventh, they're quite a bit older than me,
and we would but we were always a team in
the neighborhood, and so I was always playing with them.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
So I had to play up because I was playing
with the kids that.

Speaker 5 (04:06):
They were at their age, but I was faster than them,
and so so I knew then that I was fast.
I'm like, you know, I could beat kids that were
like five, six, seven years older than me.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah, so I.

Speaker 5 (04:16):
Knew I was fast. But yeah, there's a difference in
knowing you're fast and just having fun in the neighborhood
being faster than the other kids, and getting to a
point where you realized, hey, you know what, I can
have a future in this. I could go to the Olyptics,
I can have a professional career. I didn't really realize
that until I was a senior in high school.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
No, it's a lot of a lot of the that's
track people I knows, like, yeah, and I got on
this track shit way later than everyone else. Like see
junior senior high school is when people start to figure
that type of thing out. What was it like finding
that out senior year and then ending up at Baylor,
which is, I mean, the most iconic four hundred meters
school that's ever existed.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, it was. It was interesting. My past was still
a little bit different. Like you you know a lot
of people in track.

Speaker 5 (05:02):
You know, young kids will be in the sport just
because they love it, they're having fun. They don't really
know what, you know, professional track looks like. Because and
that's one of the reasons I started grants track is
you know, they don't realize what a professional career because
it looks like in track, So they're not even really

(05:22):
focused on that a lot of times. So I wasn't.
I didn't know, you know, that I could have a career,
professional career in the sport. I wasn't thinking about Olympics
or any of those things. So when I started getting
scholarship offers to Baylor, that's the first time I realized that,
wait a minute, there may be some other future in
this and at the next level. So when I transitioned
to Baylor, it was the first time actually that I

(05:44):
first started training in the serious training program. Before that,
you know, my coach in high school was like he
was the defensive coordinator of the football team and it
was like, you know, would come out literally a week
before the season started, going, hey, whos run attractive year?
And so we never really got in shape. He didn't
really know anything about coaching track athletes, and so I

(06:07):
never actually ended up in a serious training program. Un
so I got the Baylor That's when I started to
recognize the talent I had, the potential I had, and
what it was like to really train for excellence as
a track athlete. So that transition was exciting, but it
was it was tough because I had never I'd never
done that. So those early workouts at the beginning that

(06:28):
were really really hard and really.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Tough for me. And I was a two hundred me.

Speaker 5 (06:31):
I wasn't a four under meter spriender when I when
I left the high school I never run the four hundred.
I run on the four about four and I never
really ran the four hundred. I was a two hundred
meter spinder. And even with that, those workouts were killing
me because I had never done that before.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
So it was quite a transition.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
You have like one of the most unique running styles,
the probably most iconic running style in track history. Did
they try to change that when you got to Baylor
because how fast you are shouldn't make sense.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yes, so so so.

Speaker 5 (07:01):
Not when I got to Baylor, but when I was
being recruited, all of the coaches said, hey, you know,
in order for you to reach your full potential, you're
going to have to change your running style.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
My coach was the only one, Cloudehard at.

Speaker 5 (07:12):
Baylor was the head coach at Baylor, in my coach
d my whole career, was the only one who didn't say,
you're going to need to change the running style. And
so because he was smart enough to know that, you know,
you know, just because one person is running different than
the other people doesn't necessarily mean a they're one that's wrong,
especially if they'd one that's in the front, and that

(07:34):
turns out at the end of the day, you know,
after we started to get into it and then start
to work with sports scientists to understand, you know what
was my you know what my was my running style
you know, less efficient, wasn't doing anything that was working
against me. We started to realize that, no, it's not
my coach. You can see that with the naked eye,

(07:55):
that no, it's a very efficient running style. Turns out,
you know, do a lot of different studies working with
sports scientists, that that's the reason why I was able
to run so fast because I'm able to put more
force into the ground because of my upright style than
most people are all of the other competitors, I'm able
to put more force into the ground, force into the ground,
equal speed. Next question is going to be, well, why

(08:16):
doesn't everybody else do that? You can't just change your
running style just to be like somebody else and make
it work.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
It doesn't work like that.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
If it's not natural to how you run, then you're
not going to be able to emulate it. And the
same thing with you know, athletes now when they're running inefficiently,
if there's something without them that's inefficient, yeah, you do
need to change that running style, but it's not that
easy to do. And that's why when you see a
lot of people running in a way that you're like, oh, man,
they can run faster if they ran more efficient, you know,

(08:43):
and you could see with the naked eye it, yeah,
that's not a very efficient style.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
It's really hard to do.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (08:49):
But the end of the day, the moral to the
story is, yeah, my running style was much more efficient,
which is one of the reasons why I was able
to be as fast as I would So I was
so had I even this list to everyone else and
had not ended up with a coach who had the
good sense to go, wait a minute, you know, yeah,
it's different, but is there anything wrong with it? And
maybe something right with it? And I would have never

(09:09):
maybe even reached our potential.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
How did they go about doing those tests?

Speaker 5 (09:14):
It's force plates that measure you measure the athlete running
across the forest.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Plate you see how much force going into the ground.

Speaker 5 (09:21):
You measure angles with three D motion capture cameras and
things like that, which was early days back in the nineties.
That was the first time in the nineties and the
first time they even had that sort of thing. But
you measure angles, you measure force. You can actually measure
the force that an athlete is putting into the ground by.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
With force plates. So those are the such ways that
we were able to find that out.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
I have to say this just quickly because we're talking
about your running style. I told my dad, who was
he was a national champion at Manhattan College as a
four hundred runner. I told him that we were going
to talk today, and he said, tell Michael Johnson, he
stole my style.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
Because my dad I ran that way too.

Speaker 4 (10:00):
And he was like, yo, when I watched you know
he's much older, and when.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
He watched you, he was like, he took my whole thing.

Speaker 4 (10:06):
This was how I ran because my dad is a
very awkward style too. Something I'm for my own pops sake.
I had to say that to you. This is going
to make his fucking life that I was able.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
To tell you that you stole his style, Mike.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Growing up in uh in Dallas, we obviously know what
the music scene is like in Texas. What was some
of the artists that you listened to like in high school,
college training? What was like what was Michael Johnson listening
to while he was training and preparing to be one
of the fastest men in the world.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, So.

Speaker 5 (10:39):
I started really listening to music a lot in preparation
for racists, So not in training because from training, you're
you know, it's like being a practice, like I said,
you're you're literally working with your coach on every single
thing and getting a lot of feedback, feeding back to
the coach, with a lot of interaction. So I didn't
listen to music training, but as a competitor, you know,
when you're trying to get in its own before the

(11:01):
before the race, music was a real big part of
a big part of my routine, just like most athletes now.
But so yeah, so this is the nineties, man, So
I was. I was big on the West Coast hip hop, Tupac,
Smooth Depth Road, that whole thing. So it was a
lot of for me being a two hundred meters spread

(11:24):
and a four untime meter to spread in which both
of those events are very, very different. The music was
critical to getting me in the type of mode that
I needed to be in for the two hundred meters
and then also for the four hundred, which is different.
Sort of music was different. So, for example, the two
hunre meters is a very aggressive race. You got to
be quit fast. It's all aggression from the gun from

(11:44):
the get right. So I would be listening like some
Tupac like Me against the World, something like that. Right wow,
But at four hundred, if I took that same approach,
that's gonna get me in trouble. I got to be
a much, very much more tempoed race. It's aggressive at
some points, but at some points it's not. So I
would be listening to like some smooth rn B because

(12:05):
that's a little too too smooth and really not going
to get you where they need to be. But it
wouldn't be as aggressive as as like some Tupac. So
i'd be listening to something like what maybe I'm trying
to remember what I would listen to for four hundred.
It might be some up tempo like D'Angelo, not the

(12:27):
smooth like you.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Know, like some Devils.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, exactly right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Did you ever run into POC? I mean, especially I
did I did you did you ever want to like personally?

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Did you like he's still alive?

Speaker 3 (12:47):
In my opinion, I'm on that side conspiracy.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
You're one of those.

Speaker 5 (12:55):
Yeah, I did back in the day, man, you know, man,
it was really cool and interesting. The first time I
met Park was at a club here in LA when
he and Mike Tyson had both just got out of
prison and and we were we were hanging out at
this club, and it was kind of surreal just that

(13:15):
we're just sitting at this bar, like out at this
club and I'm the I'm the I'm the eye one
out that i had not been to prison.

Speaker 4 (13:26):
Yeah, like, you can't share those stories, but that's a
good circle not to be a party.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
If you want to be that's the perfect time.

Speaker 5 (13:35):
Like idols though both were like idols for me, man,
even though we were at the same you know, so
the same time, you know, it was like they were
I mean it was I was just I'm sitting here
with this dude. I listened to your music to get,
you know, ready for my for my for my racist
right right.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Did you did you share that story with him? Did
you let him know that he was somebody you listened
to when you.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Were Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's dope. I'm not the not
the part about being the odd one.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
So I'm sorry you went through that. Put I can't
relate to it.

Speaker 4 (14:06):
I mean, I know it's interesting with track athletes because
when the Olympics rolls around every four years, y'all become
the biggest celebrities ever, but it's every four years, so
it's a weird cycle. When you ran into musicians, rappers
or anything, did people know who you were in the
early nineties, like pre ninety six Olympics, No, not.

Speaker 5 (14:28):
For ninety six, not pre ninety six. There was rare
for for ninety six. And then you know, and that's
that's the thing, you know, for track athletes. I mean,
I was the Olympic champion, world champion, making history in
the sport, world record or they're doing all of these things,
and nobody really knew, like you know, you know, in
that situation. Had it been this was after ninety six,
and what I accompl just gave a pre ninety six, yeah,

(14:50):
you know, I wouldn't have been in that. I wouldn't
have been in that situation. I wouldn't have been there
in that in that group. Probably wouldn't have been in
that club, you know.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
Uh. And then but I had the.

Speaker 5 (15:02):
Good fortune of you know, making history in ninety six
at the Olympics, at Olympics here at home as well,
you know, which got captured everybody's attention, and it was
a really special moment in history, right, And I was
able to accomplish something significant in the sport at that
moment when the world is watching, and it's rare that

(15:22):
a track athlete will get that opportunity, right. So that's
why track athletes are, like you said, you're in that moment,
but everybody see you and they might remember your name
for a bit, but you don't have the opportunity to
really sort of establish yourself and your greatness and the
general you know, public's consciousness unless you have the opportunity

(15:44):
to sustain that and keep doing it and keep performing.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Against the best.

Speaker 5 (15:48):
That's the reason why I started grant some track because
I was able to be fortunate to have that opportunity.
But most track athletes don't because we only have that
opportunity once.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Every four years.

Speaker 5 (16:00):
You know, you think about like we were talking about,
you know, as a kid, you know, running track, and
like I was saying, I didn't even know that there
was a professional track you know that that even existed
because there was no exclusive home for the fastest people
right where. We have that now every other sport has that.
So if you think about a thirteen year old kid
out on the basketball court, shooting basket You're like, what

(16:23):
do you want to do? What's your dream play in
the NBA right playing a WNBA. If you think about
a tennis player, same situation, NFL is saying, oh, you know,
football is NFL. You know you think about tennis like,
I want to play in the Grand Slams, I want
to be a top ranked thenis for that player? You know,
if you're a golf where you want to I want
to play on the PGA Tour and now to Live Tour.

(16:44):
They have that exclusive home everybody knows where the best
of the best in that sport play. You ask a
thirteen year old track kid, you know, what do you
want to do?

Speaker 1 (16:52):
What are they going to say?

Speaker 5 (16:53):
I want to go to the Olympics, right, So that
only happens every four years, so you know, so even
if you do get the opportunity to do it, it's
not a real future because we don't have an actually
exclusive league. So what we're doing with Grandstam Track is
establishing a specifical league at the top of the sport
for the best of the best athletes, just like every
other sport has. UFC is the home of you know, MMA,

(17:15):
it's the best place for it. You know, everybody knows
that the best play there. Same thing with track now,
with Grand Stam track, that's where you go. So that
thirteen year old kid now will be like, yeah, what
are you gonna do? I want to run I want
to run the Grand sumtrack. You don't want to be
part of that league because that's where the best actually compete.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, no, I definitely do that going into the into
the Olympics in ninety six in Atlanta.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
Right before we get to the ninety six Olympics, of
a thousand questions, I have one ninety two games question,
what did you eat that night?

Speaker 1 (17:48):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (17:48):
I was it was? I think it was. I heard
we had a lot of different stuff this restaurant. It
was actually a week before the Olympics, and I ended
up going to this restaurant getting food poison. We had ham,
we had all the delicious to the crazy. Is an
amazing restaurant. Yeah, and unfortunately got food poison cost me poss.

(18:10):
I was Olympic, I was world champion. I was a
heavy favorite to win the Olympics year in the two hundred. Yeah,
and that food poison just you know, wrecked my preparation.
And that's the thing too. It's like, you know, as
an Olympic athlete, when you know that, you know this
is only every four years. It's not every year you
get a chance to go back and try again. You
you know that I may not ever get this chance again.

(18:32):
You know, I got to wait a whole nother four years.
So it was a devastating experience. Obously, everything you remember
the name of it.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
I came back. I do not remember the name of
the restaurant.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
Because I was going to leave.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Back there.

Speaker 4 (18:47):
That was That's all I wanted to do, was leave
awful Yelp reviews. I wanted to know before we got
to ninety six games. I'm sorry for interrupting, but I
had to know so we could find that restaurant and
get crazy on Yelp into twenty five of what they did.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, they may be closed by now, and hopefully they
better be closed, and hopefully they're closed. And watching the
Sprint documentary on Netflix one of my favorite documentaries in
the last recent years that I watched. I learned a
lot about the sport and you know, just the thought
of like you said, you train and you prepped for

(19:20):
years for this ten twenty second window going into the
ninety six Olympics. The whole world watching when you debuted
the gold sneakers, Like, how hard was it to keep
those sneakers underwrap and just debute them on the track,
Because I remember watching it and when you stepped on

(19:42):
the track with those sneakers, everybody was like, yo, we
need those. We never wore track sneakers of dan our lives,
but those gold sneakers. Everybody in the hood was like, yo, winner,
those dropping And did you have anything to do with
the design of those sneakers.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
He's also a novice. They're called spikes, so yeah.

Speaker 5 (20:02):
So I worked with Night on that project for a
year and a half to make this the lightest, most
innovative trackspike ever. I decided on the color, decided to
make them gold. It was already it was. It wasn't
just that they were gold also it was it was
the design was completely different than anything anybody had ever

(20:22):
seen in the in.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
The sport before. So we debuted it.

Speaker 5 (20:26):
We teased it a bit at the trials with a
purple pair, same shoe purple, and everybody went crazy. And
what was hard, so to your point was like everybody
sort of knew that well, then this is what you're
doing at the trials, you're probably doing something different at
the game.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
Is it going to be different?

Speaker 5 (20:44):
I did confound that it was going to be different,
and that just sent the media just scrambling trying to
find what is it going to be?

Speaker 1 (20:50):
What is it?

Speaker 5 (20:51):
What's somebody in the life. And so it was about
a month later against I was a month later. So
for that month, I mean, it was underlight. I mean,
not a lot of people had seen the goal. It
was like only a handful of people. We kept it
really tight. Yeah, so nobody had seen the goal. We
actually did a I release the day before my first

(21:13):
race in Atlanta for the Olympics, where we were dealble
to go shoot. So by the next day just enough
people knew, you know, if we haven't seen it in
that press release, Yeah, people went crazy. And so then
the crazy thing after that was every time I had
eight races, four rounds of the four hundred and four

(21:33):
rounds of two hundred. Every time I went out. This
is back in the days a flash slash bowls that
was on the camera right with the camera phones, and
if you watch, like you know, if you watch the
video every race, you will see just like there's splashes
going off all the way around the track as I'm
running because people are just taking pictures the whole way around,

(21:53):
taking pictures. And you look at some of those pictures
that people take have taken, and they took pictures of
the shoot.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
Just the shoe was it was? It was it tough though,
Like did you did you feel any added pressure because
obviously the sneaker is gold, so it's like you can't
get silver or bronze and have on gold sneakers, so
you're committed to this gold shoe. Nikes obviously put this
whole campaign, this whole thing together with this gold sneaker.

(22:23):
Did you feel any added pressure, like I have to
win because if not, I have these shoes on, these
gold shoes on, and I'm accepting a silver medal, it
just doesn't translate.

Speaker 5 (22:33):
Yeah, So I made the decision. They were shocked when
I made the decision. They said what color you wanted
to be? When I said I wanted to be gold,
they were shocked, like, you're sure, right, but that was
you know, so you know, for me, it was I
was confident, yeah, that I was gonna that I was

(22:54):
gonna win goal, everything that I was everything for that
entire year leading up to that Olympics. That whole season
it was all about winning gold and both the two
hundred and four hundred anything sure that that was going
to be a failure, and for me it was more
and I saw it as an amazing opportunity to do

(23:14):
something special at this Olympics in Atlanta, at a home Olympics,
you know, being in the US, and so I was
just more focused on that and not focused. I mean,
there's there's some situations where you have to be more
focused on the opportunity. So you're taking a more offensive
mindset versus trying to defend against the possible backlash or

(23:36):
the positive negativetivity or the possible failure because because then
if that's your mindset, then you're not going to be
in position to take advantage of the opportunity. So the
opportunity for me was, Okay, if I go out here,
I already believe that I'm going to make history. I'm
gonna win both of these races. I'm gonna win to

(23:59):
go now, and I'm going to do it at home.
If I do it with some amazing style, ass wows
everybody that's a huge opportunity.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
I will I will that will, you know, sort of
burnish my legacy forever.

Speaker 5 (24:14):
People will forever remember that moment, right, and this will
allow me to transcend the sport, which is what I'm
trying to do right now, help these athletes transcend the sport.
It was really difficult back then because again, as you said,
you know track, it's only every four years after forty
years in between, nobody really pays attention and that in
the case ever since.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
So this is my opportunity.

Speaker 5 (24:36):
If I was focused more on, hey, I don't want
to draw too much attention to myself because I might
not win, then I missed that opportunity. If I You're right,
you know, it would have been you know, backlash. People
would never been jokes, you know, everywhere it would have been.
There was no means back then, but that would have
become a mean. Winning the Selver Metal up brons, you know,

(25:01):
everybody would have talked about that.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
But if you focused on that, then you missed the opportunity.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
I mean, of course you had gold on your mind
with those races.

Speaker 4 (25:09):
Did you have a time in mind and was the
world record also on your brain or was it just
winning the goal.

Speaker 5 (25:18):
So it was all about winning, because that's the adjective,
you know. I was already the world record old in
too much. Yeah, but I thought, you know, as far
as times are concerned, I'm going to have to break
the world record again again. It race just because that
was the quality of the competition. So Frankie Fredericks who
got the silver and that broke the old world record,

(25:40):
yeah as well in second place. So it was I
already knew that it's going to take another world record.
Just how far under the world records are going to be.
I already knew I was going to break the world
record again because when I broke it before, I barely
broke it, and that was by far not the perfect race.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
Yeah. Take us back to the first time.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
You remember we're seeing you saying Bolt, Like, what did
Michael Johnson think about when he first saw Usain Bolt running.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
Two thousand and four?

Speaker 5 (26:09):
Was the first time I saw you saying into two
thousand and four Olympics and he didn't make the finals
into two hundred. He was probably eighteen years old maybe
at that point, but we had heard about him down
in Jamaica that the really tall kids j making coming
out of Jamaica was just the Stevena. So at that point,
you know you're thinking, you know, there's a lot of

(26:30):
talent that comes out of Jamaica. I mean, they they
got they manufactured so many sprinters, so you're like, okay,
they got another one.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
You know, he's just different because he's really tall and
he was very.

Speaker 5 (26:41):
Gangly, you know, so he thought that he's got potential
and he might do something special, you know, one of
these days. But a lot of people have that potential.
So it wasn't until two thousand and eight that you
started to see that okay, you know, and.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
It happened really really fast. You know.

Speaker 5 (26:59):
It wasn't like, you know, between two thousand and four
and two thousand and eight he was really you know,
doing anything. He was having some injuries and things, but again,
you alwaysknew that potential with that. In two thousand and eight,
it just all came out.

Speaker 4 (27:11):
I mean a Sopha Power was the guy at that time.
In two thousand and eight, it was at Icon Stadium
when they had that race at Randalls Island and that
shit changed everything, Like it was like, who the fuck
is this kid?

Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (27:26):
Yeah, I mean I always feel Track is seventy percent
mental and thirty percent physical. What is going through your
brain in the blocks in the two hundred, and then
what's going through your brain in the four hundred, just
when you're in the blocks getting ready.

Speaker 5 (27:48):
So it's the same for both of those races when
you're in the blocks, and the thing is just like
any other sport, the best of the best, No, so
that it doesn't matter. It's not a seventy percent mental,
thirty percent physical, thirty percent physicals you know, seventy percent mental.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
And all of it is not about that.

Speaker 5 (28:10):
What matters is that being able to be physically prepared,
having trained as well as you possibly can, is one component.
Being able to be mentally and emotionally in the right
mindset in those moments before you go out there and
those nerve recor racking moments before the gun goes out.

(28:31):
Being able to be in the right mindset to go
out there and execute your the best race matters. The
ability in the race to make the right decisions and
execute the strategy and make the right adjustments in real time.
And a nineteen second rate or even a nine second
rate matters, nutrition matters, recovery matters, All of those things matter,

(28:52):
So instead of focusing on well, how much is this one,
this one is ten percent, this one's twenty five percent,
this one seventy percent everything, you want to be one
hundred percent on all of those things. That's what the
best of the best in any sport does. So understanding
that you know you want to be in training every
day focused on being one hundred percent physically prepared and

(29:14):
in your best shape when you get to the race.
In your warm up and preparation, you want to already
have an understanding of how you mentally get yourself in
the right mindset to be able to deal with the
pressure and deal with the nerves and be able to
manage that so that you are able to go in
and not have to run tight, you can run your
best race. And those moments just before the gun goes out,

(29:35):
everybody's figured out what their routine is the best of
the best athletes. Those who aren't haven't figured that out yet,
and so they're sort of just kind of subject to
the moment and whatever sort of thoughts might come into
their mind. Of the best athletes, I already know it's
what I need to do in order to be at
my best. When it's gun goes out. For me, that

(29:56):
was being at the height of focus and only thinking
about what's the first step I've got to make, What's
the first action I have to take when this gun sounds.
I can't be ten seconds into the race. I can't
be thinking twenty seconds into the race. I damn sure
can't be thinking about what's going to happen after the
race or the end of the race. You got to
be focused on the moment when you're talking about a spoil.

(30:18):
The one thing about tractors different and costs for is
it costs for a focus.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Like nothing else.

Speaker 5 (30:24):
We don't have any halftimes, we don't have quarters, we
don't have time out, you can't call time out, and
the gun sounds, Especially for sprints, there's no adjustments, So
the one hundred meters you can't really make an adjustment
in that race. Two hundred meters you might be able
to get away with one adjustment if you make a mistake.
Four hundred meters got a little bit more time to
make adjustments, but at the same time, because it's a

(30:46):
long sprint, the margin for area is much higher. Because
there's way more time to make mistakes that you have
to then adjust for so it takes a lot. So
all of this is you know, takes place at n
eighteen second race. I mean, when you're standing behind the blocks,
you're it's the Olympic final. You know that nineteen seconds
from now, I'm either i'ma bet the Olympic champion or not.
And it all comes down to how I execute right now.

(31:07):
There's no timeout, there's no next year, there's no path time.
I can't you know, there's.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
None of that, right.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Do you agree with a lot of the flact that
no Allows gets because of his his demeanor, his bravado.
He's very you know, his approach and his style is
a lot different. I laugh at people that don't like
him because I'm like, listen to he just seems like
he's just confident and what he does. A lot of
people are more laid back in track. You don't really

(31:32):
have a lot of you know, people in track that.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
Have these big personalities.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
But I just think that that's part of the newer generation,
in the new era, is that you have social media
and you have all these outlets that you can use,
and I just think no Allows as a product of that.
Do you agree with some of the backlash or do
you understand how some people kind of like don't like
no Allows personality and would rather him just run and
not be so I guess loud.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
All of that.

Speaker 5 (32:00):
That's the world we live in, where everybody has a
right to their opinion to like or dislike any person
in the public for how they actually are, how they look,
who they are, what they say, how they go about.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
Their business, you know, you know, and that's this case
with Noah. He's the Olympic champion, World champion. He has
decided how he wants to build his brand, who he
wants to be, how he wants to be, and you're
going to have people who are going to support that,
and you're going to have people who are not. You're
going to have.

Speaker 5 (32:34):
People who are saying you shouldn't do that, just like
you have people who said that no U saying boats
shouldn't be you know, it's you know, out there playing
to the crowd and whatnot like he does before. You
have people who said I shouldn't be so bowld as
to wear gold shoes. You have people who said Carl
Lewis was trying too hard to be a celebrity.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
You know, are those people wrong? They're not wrong. That's
their opinion. There's no right or wrong to an opinion.
Everybody has their has their opinion, and I don't nobody
have an opinion about you. Then you know you want
to be what I mean, if you want to be
if you don't want to be numb with some people don't,
then great. But if you want to be known, you know,

(33:15):
you do what you want to do. And Noah's doing
what he wants to do. But the thing is that
at the end of the day, Noah shows up and
races and he calls his shot. You know, you got
to you got to respect that, you know. Then he
goes out there and he calls his shot. I think
that you know, you know, he has put himself out there.
I just hope that he can handle, you know, because

(33:37):
you you have to understand how much of the backlash
you can handle, you know, because he makes some bold claims,
he makes some bold statements along with that, you know,
and if you're going to make bold statements, first you
better be right. You know, you're not right, you know,
and sometimes he's not right. And then he has come
back and apologize because he got his facts from it.

(33:59):
But he made a bull you know. So you know,
so that's the first thing.

Speaker 5 (34:02):
And then you're going to have backlash when you made
bold statements, and especially again if you're not right about
what you say, then it's going to be backlass.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
So you know that's and maybe he's good with that.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:14):
I feel like track runners, like even like Chakari, have
gotten backlash they don't deserve because I think track is
similar to boxing. I know that sounds like a very
insane take, but it's one of the few sports outside
of the relays, that is just me versus you. It's
the purest boxing and track to me, of the two
purest sports on Earth. They're also the only sport that

(34:35):
has to deal with survival as well fighting and running.
I don't understand why track runners don't treat the Olympics
or even World Games or any meets like boxing. You
have to market yourself before every single fight. That's part
of the sport. I don't think track runners should be quiet.
I love what no Allowles is doing. You should treat

(34:56):
every single meet like it's a boxing match, to mark,
get it, promote, like you're gonna make your money off
the promotion. Boxing only lasts for this amount of time,
like that's what it should be.

Speaker 5 (35:08):
I agree with you, but I think the issue has
been up until now. And again this is one of
the reasons why I created grands on tracks so we
can actually be a home for that where we can,
you know, athletes can feel more comfortable being themselves. But
look what we always tell our races, and we have
forty eight of them in our league and they're all

(35:29):
Olympic and World championship medalists and champions, you know, is
to be authentic because at the end of the day,
you know, you know, look, that's one of the things
that probably isn't going to fly too many other places.
Other are maybe in boxing. But if you're not authentic
and you're just trying to put on a personality and
where you better be damn good at it. Like WWE,

(35:50):
they're good at it, you know, they're amazing at it.
They can convince you, you know, because it's what's it's
how they're built. They're really good at it. But if
you're not really good at that, and that isn't the
sport w W that is the actual that is the craft.
Being really good at selling people on a persona and

(36:10):
being good at you know, presenting that persona, and in
every other sport, you know, it's the craft is the
sport itself, the skill of the sport. So in tract,
the skill is is winning races, being faster than any
other people. You're probably not spending your time trying to
actually create an exhibit, a persona and make people buy

(36:35):
into that persona. You're probably now there are people out
there who think they're good at it, and they're and
there and they're failing, you know, to com you know it.
But they think they're good at it. But look this,
you know today's audience. You know, I'm not one of them.
I'm not one of these young you know, young people.

(36:56):
How bad that's consuming about. But they are very good
at sipping through bullshit. They don't buy it. They're not
going to buy it. Right, I'm not one, but I
know them very well. A lot of them work for me,
and I study them, and we have to as a lead.
They're not buying bullshit, so we sort of we try
to lean into the actual authentic personality of our racers.

(37:20):
And then because there's somebody out there who's just like you,
no matter who you are, if you're a nerd, there's
somebody out there who's a TrackMan, that's a nerd. If
you're into you know, you know, whatever gaming, if you're
into you know, animals, you know, if you're religious, whatever
it might be. You know, if there's someone out there

(37:42):
who loves track, who loves sports, and they're just like you,
and now you're their person. Right, So look, you know,
if you're not, if it's not natural to you, trying
to come out, you know and be like a boxer
and you know and do all, it doesn't work, you know.
So we have rivals and grants on track. We have
people who have rivalries. And some of the folks are

(38:03):
you know, quiet and you know, and they just kind
of go, okay, we'll see, we'll get there, you know.
And then you got some that are like, you know,
I'm gonna kick your assa, I'm gonna do all of this,
you know, like that. And then you got some but like,
you know, just want to just kind of sit back
and go, I got nothing to say.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
I'll let my legs go to talk and say that then, right,
you know, and we and and and it.

Speaker 5 (38:26):
Works, and it works brilliant, and we promote all of
that in our race group and our men's fifteen hundred
meter runners gold silver browns from the Olympics on the podium.
We sign them all to the league. They're a good
example of that. They're all different and they all take
their individual approach. But you ask them who's gonna win,
they all say it's gonna be mer Like, Okay, well,

(38:48):
you know, you got to go through that person. They're like,
I know, I'm gonna have to go through them, and
I will go through them, right, you know. And some
do it from the perspective of being a nerd. Some
do it from the perspective of being I'm keen, calm
and you know, and and it's just different, right, It's authentic,
And that's what I think our fans appreciate. That's why
they love it, because it's authentic. They're all themselves.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
Yeah, no, I hear that and love that. To quickly
go back to the ninety six Games. Where were you
when the bomb went off in Centennial Park.

Speaker 5 (39:17):
I was right across the street. I was at the
at the Grant at the Hyatt. I was staying at
the Hyatt s CNN Center, which is right across the street.
It was two nights before It's the omni I think
now yep, yeah, yeah. It was two nights before my
first race, and I was sleep. I just went to sleep.

(39:42):
I just gone to sleep, and then my phone kept
bringing it with my brother. He had just got in town.
It's like you're okay, and I was like yeah. He's like, man,
it's like there's all these police coming by me. I
just got in town on the highways. Like they set
up bombing off somewhere over near yor hotel.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
I was like, wow, Oh, you didn't even hear it.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
I didn't hear it.

Speaker 5 (39:57):
No, No, but yeah, that was It was a little
really right across from from a hotel, right across the street.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
And it was two days before. So the next day
we went short.

Speaker 5 (40:06):
We were even gonna run the next day, and ultimately
they decided not to postpone the games and so we went.

Speaker 4 (40:12):
Was was that added pressure outside of the immense pressure already.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yeah, that has to like change your whole mental Yeah,
like how does an athlete?

Speaker 1 (40:21):
No, you know, I mean, I mean, like you know,
I don't.

Speaker 5 (40:24):
I think I think it was kind of understood that
it was an isolated event and then you know, there
was one casualty from it. You know which was, which
was obviously unfortunate. But you know, you know, at that point,
you know, you're just so locked in, you know that,
you know, you just focused on on the task at
hand and what happens on the track, And you know,
I think I don't think there was any concern at

(40:46):
that point, given that, you know, at that point, they
weren't even short if it was an.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
Accident or what it was. Yes, then they did find
out it was.

Speaker 5 (40:53):
A bomb, but it felt like that they felt like
it was an isolated event, so we just got on
with it.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
Recently, there was something, uh to kind of laugh at
in track and field, uhl, this one, this one, this one,
and you know, talking to somebody like you was obviously
track Royalty.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
What did you think about?

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Uh, the relay runners and the girl with the baton
who said it was an accident with her hitting the
other runner in the head with the baton. Now, I've
never ran track. Just looking at it, it's not a
natural That wasn't a natural motion.

Speaker 3 (41:33):
That was her running stuff. No, that was not a
natural fuck emotion.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
So as just asking Michael John, what do you think
looking at it? Did you laugh when she said it
was an accident and she didn't see her like as
a runner.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
What did you think in that moment?

Speaker 5 (41:48):
I thought it was crazy, right, it was. It was
pretty crazy. The initial reaction was, what the hell is
going on?

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Right? This is crazy? Right?

Speaker 5 (41:59):
But I think that both of you guys kind of
represent you know, the two different opinions, which is, you know, like,
you know, like she does have a crazy running style.
It looks a little crazy, right, And then she was
you know, you know, uh, you know, knocked off balance.
But it looks like, you know, from your perspective as well,

(42:21):
it's like it looks like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
You got she kind of wound up, you know.

Speaker 5 (42:25):
So look, man, I think you're going to have I
don't know, you know, I wasn't there. I don't know
what was happening. Everybody's got their opinions on things. I'm
a fact based person. If I don't have the facts
that I don't, you know, I don't I don't tend
to tend to go in on an opinion. I don't
think my opinion really matters on this, right, you know,

(42:46):
I don't think it's consequential to the situation, and it
doesn't really matter to me either. But you know, looking
at it, it's kind of like it's one of the
wildest things I've seen quite sometimes, right, I mean it's
pretty wild, pretty wild situation. And you know, the at
the end of the day, the thing that still seems

(43:07):
to be, you know, most unfortunate is that you know,
these two young athletes, you know, are no in the
situation where you know that from to my understanding, there
hasn't been an apology, you know, even if there was
an accident. You know, that was the thing that I

(43:29):
think just compounded the situation that you know, you didn't
go over and apologize and literally left the track that
they just you know, haven't just hit someone in the
head with the with the baton, right, and which such
sounds crazy just even saying that, right, I mean, it
looks even crazy when we sing it. Yeah, go check
it out because it is crazy. But yeah, yeah, that

(43:50):
was that was unfortunate though, that's the main thing that
came out of it. Is unfortunate, regardless whether it was
intended or not. And I look, ill, I have no.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
Problems saying that I don't know what happened, but it's
really difficult to convince anybody you're gonna have a hard
time convince anybody that wasn't intentional exactly.

Speaker 4 (44:08):
I gave her grace when I saw the first angle
when they were coming around the corner, I was like,
all right, maybe she did stumble. Then I saw the
camera angle from the other side, like on her back,
and I was like, oh, she just knocked that chick
out like it was Definitely there was not a running
style at all. No, she clearly did that, which, again
to your point, I've never seen some shit like that.

(44:29):
I was running one hundred and sixty eighth Street Armory
in Washington Heights, where there'd be fights after track meets.
I've never seen anyone hit somebody with the baton in
my life.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
Right, that is insane. Right, Mike quickly, how does you
feel watching your world record be broken?

Speaker 1 (44:49):
You know, that's it's a very It's a good question.

Speaker 5 (44:52):
I get asked that question a lot of times because
the automatic assumption is is that you know you're sad
that your record cat broken. When you're saying broke my
two hundred meter record, I was eight years into my retirement.
I had been retired for eight years when Wave van
Knee Kirk broke my four hundred meter world record. I've

(45:16):
been retired for sixteen years, and I was in the
stadium as a television commentator for BBC for both of
those races.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
And look in the eight years.

Speaker 5 (45:28):
From the time I retired to when you say broke
my record in the sixteen years. So I never introduced
myself as the world record holder because it's not part
of my identity. It's not how I see myself as
the stilled the world record holder. When I was competing.
I saw myself that way, and if anybody had broken
my world records when I was competing, then I would

(45:50):
have been that would become Mission number one is get
it back.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
Okay, makes sense.

Speaker 5 (45:54):
You know, when you're retired from the sport, you're not
going to go get that record back and just holding
onto it.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
You know, it doesn't really that. I've always been about
goals and accomplishments.

Speaker 5 (46:05):
And you know, it's it's not I'm not those eight
years like people always say, oh man, you held on
to that record for sixteen years in the forumn, like
that's a long time. Like I didn't do that right,
just nobody had run faster. But that wasn't anything that
I did. You know, you could say Okay, well you
put it so far out.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
There, you know.

Speaker 5 (46:24):
Okay, yeah, that's cool. But the thing is, again, it's
about the accomplishment, you know. I still remember how hard
I worked and how long I chased both of those records,
and I remember the day I broke it and the
team that would you know, worked with me, that helped
me break them.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
That's what you remember. You'll cherish that moment forever. The
it is the.

Speaker 5 (46:42):
Accomplishment, but the idea that you're going to hold on
to a record, you know, till you die. I mean
when by the time I, you know, had retired, I
moved on to doing other things, and I was accomplishing
other things as an entrepreneur, you know, and so I
wasn't caught up in being the world record overly, so
things didn't really change for me.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
I remember going into the studio the next day.

Speaker 5 (47:05):
After the record was broken, and one of my co
hosts on another show that I did for BBC Journey.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Olympics, she was like, everybody's like, are you okay? And
I was like what, There's somebody like, what is going on? Right?
You know?

Speaker 4 (47:20):
Did you have all right? So when you say boat
broke the one hundred meter record. It almost felt like
he jogged through the fucking line of how amazing he
was as a track icon, you understand body language and
facial expressions. He fought for that two hundred. I've never
seen Usain boat put in the effort he did to

(47:41):
break that record. While you were watching it, it was like,
all right, cool, but Usain has never looked like he
was struggling until it was time to try to break
your record. His whole face on that two hundred. But
we had never even seen Usain look like that.

Speaker 5 (47:57):
But he is always said and has said then like
the two hundred meters was always his favorite race because
that's that was that was that was Nobody even thought
he was ever going to be a one hundred meter run.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
Yeah, two hundred meters is the race.

Speaker 5 (48:12):
That's the one that he wanted most and like, but
you knew it was coming, Like I mean, like I
remember the day of that race and I was like
doing some analysis for BBC and I was like, I'll
be shocked if he doesn't.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Break this world record. Right, it was crazy that I
thought he was going to run.

Speaker 5 (48:30):
So he ultimately he ran nineteen point eighteen, right, which
is the world record today. But when he broke at
the first time, what I had ran was nineteen point
three two, and he ran nineteen point three one. And
you could just tell that day, even if demeanor was different,
like I'm going to break this record no matter what,
I don't care what it takes, right, because that's the
one that he always wanted, and I think that was

(48:52):
the one also that he probably felt like, if I'm
going to break it, I'm gonna break that one first.
And it didn't come first. One hundred came first. I
know it was something he always wanted. But I didn't
feel like he was struggling. I felt like he was,
you look at it here, trying really hard, which is
actually what you shouldn't do.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
Yes, we never seen his swagger and his calmness was.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Hiring really hard.

Speaker 5 (49:14):
Yeah, because you know, I think in the one hundred,
it was always sort of you know, I'm gonna get
this record. You know he were The first time he
broke it, he shocked himself. He wasn't even expecting to
break it. Nobody thought he was a break. It came
out of nowhere. The next time he broke it, I think,
you know, at the Olympics, in twenty in two thousand
and eight. You know, I think then it was kind
of like, yeah, I think, I know, I'm gonna break

(49:35):
it again. But the two hundred, he was trying hard
and he really wanted it and got it.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
Yeah, Mike, quickly before we let you go, talk to
us a little bit more about Grand Slam Track. What
is the what is the goal outside of just giving
runners a home when it's not the Olympics, what is
the goal in the mission with Grand Slam Track.

Speaker 5 (49:52):
The ultimate vision for it is, you know, grands Track
should be the Formula one, the us See of track,
you know, or the fastest people in the world. And
so we know that there's a fan base out there
for this sport. They watch it every year.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
There's you know.

Speaker 5 (50:13):
One hundred over one hundred million people a year watching
two track meets, over three hundred million people a year
watching at least two track meets, and you know, and
during the Olympics, everybody's watching the sport. They love it
and it's their favorite sport. So the structure of the
sport just has not been sufficient because there hasn't been

(50:33):
a true home for these athletes as a league. So,
you know, we feel very confident that we can get there,
and so it's delivering to fans the same type of
epic competition between the fastest people, with storytelling highlighting these personalities.
But primarily the main thing here is having the fastest

(50:56):
people competing against one another, which we typically don't see
outside of the Olympics because the structure hasn't been there
to actually compensate their athletes in.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Order to make it worth their while. We put these
athletes under contract.

Speaker 5 (51:09):
We have the fast people on the planet under contract
and this exclusive home for them with band soundtrack.

Speaker 3 (51:15):
Why hasn't Why has it?

Speaker 2 (51:16):
I mean I'm happy that you're doing this, but why
hasn't it been anything like this with track?

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Like what is the what do you wa as? It's
a little bit complex, but as an Olympic sport, it's
been primarily been left to global federation, the global governing
bodies of the sport. Governing bodies are great at rules
and governors, that's what they do really well. They're not

(51:42):
great at marketing and commercialization, which is what it takes
to be a modern thriving sports property, and it typically
takes a for profit private, you know, unpolitical organization to
be able to do that, which is what we are.

Speaker 5 (51:57):
We're venture backed, uh private for profit you know, entity,
just like most other professional sports are. And so no
one has been able to marshal all of the resources
as well to understand the sport at the level that
I have. Han't been an athlete, having represented athletes, Jeremy.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Warren it was one of my class for my.

Speaker 5 (52:23):
Sports management company represented, so we've represented athletes. I've been
a television commentator for twenty two years covering the sport
as well, so I understand the sport as sort of
all angles and have been able to recognize, you know,
what is needed in order for this sport to be
able to thrive. But then you also have to have

(52:46):
the ability to then sort of step outside of the sport.
I'm a fan of the sport, but typically you know,
as a fan, you're sort of protective of you know,
this sport and what it has always been and how
it's traditionally been, and that's that can be. It's almost
like that thing you know, like if you do something
too tight and squeeze it, you know, you'll squeeze.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
The life out of it and you don't let it thrive.

Speaker 5 (53:07):
And that's sort of what happens a lot with try
that a lot of people that are involved in the
sport and have been for many years that love the sport,
but they love it too much that they don't let
it thrive. And so what has happened is as you've
seen the media landscape and how broadcast media and traditional
media has changed in response to social.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Media and digital media.

Speaker 5 (53:30):
And how all of those things are changing, those things
are changing, as well as people's viewing habits and the
way fans engage with sport and engage with entertainment.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
All of those things have changed. Most sports continue to
change along with that out of necessity. As an Olympic sport,
you don't feel oftentimes like you need to change, and
then you want to hold onto this traditional way of
doing things, and that is falt because the sport to
fall behind dramatically. And so we are you know, kind

(53:58):
of sit outside at that structure and have the ability
to do.

Speaker 5 (54:02):
Things that are much more create a much more modern
presentation of the sport and capitalize on all of the
sort of digital technology tools that are out there, but
also to understand what people's viewing have it so what
they really want to see how they want to.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Engage with sport and be able to build our league
around all of those things.

Speaker 4 (54:21):
That's amazing And any way we can help out with that,
like go on the commentating side content around it.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
We're here. Yeah, I would love to just just see
the whole would be incredible.

Speaker 5 (54:31):
Buy some tickets and come to it. If you're not
watch it on TV. We what we can get, can
I can?

Speaker 4 (54:41):
I put you on the spot right before we let
you go. I see the ring on your fingers. So
if you want to pass on this question, it's totally fine.
There was an article this year talking about how freaky
the Olympic Village gets and how many contents. I'm telling you,
there was like it was a New York Times of
how many condoms are used at the uh Olympic Village.

(55:01):
You could pass on the question, It's fine. I just
I'm gonna ask it though.

Speaker 5 (55:06):
Man, I mean, if I could answer it, I would.
I can't because I never stayed in the village, so whatever.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
They have they he wasn't with you peasants. The world's
fastest man stayed in the village.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
In the village, man, but I you know, I heard
the stories because I never I never stayed in the village.

Speaker 5 (55:28):
I respected Mike missed out on whatever was going on
though it sounds like it was ethic, but.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
It sounds like it was a great time, but I
missed it, Mike, listen crazy. We appreciate you, uh, congrats
with everything you're doing with Grand Slam track.

Speaker 3 (55:45):
We're definitely gonna support it.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Definitely want to come to a couple of events and
races just to see everything that you're building with Grand Slam.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
We appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
It's and the privilege to have some time with you,
and thank you for entertaining us over the years. Thank
you for giving us something to look at and just
be in awe of, and just thank you for kicking
with us today.

Speaker 3 (56:06):
We appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (56:07):
As a former track runner, thank you so much for
what you're doing Grand Slam like that means a lot
to track runners to finally make this thing really matter
and actually get what we're worth in this entire thing,
so any way we can help.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
I am here for sure, So thank you so much
that man.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
I appreciate you, guys, appreciate the support.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
Thank you, man, appreciate you all right, take care, peace
yet