NYC Grand Prix track meet brings world-class athletics back to the Big Apple

World Athletics now has a foothold on both coasts in the United States.

The USATF NYC Grand Prix, which will be held Sunday in New York at Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island, is a new stop on the World Athletics Continental Gold Tour. The other major international meets in the United States are the USATF Golden Games outside Los Angeles and the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, which is the lone U.S. Diamond League meet.

Building interest among the American fan base is critical this year because the World Championships in track and field will be held for the first time on U.S. soil. They will take place in July in Eugene at Historic Hayward Field.

The headliners in New York were stars at the Tokyo Olympic Games: Sydney McLaughlin, the Olympic champion and world record holder in the women’s 400-meter hurdles, silver medalists Grant Holloway (110-meter hurdles) and Raven Saunders (shot put) and bronze medalists Gabby Thomas and Noah Lyles (both in the 200).

World champion Christian Coleman and Sha’Carri Richardson, who both had controversial doping suspensions — Coleman for missing random tests and Richardson for testing positive for marijuana — will compete in the 100-meter dashes.

USATF called Richardson a “sprint sensation” and used a photo of her to promote the meet, where she will face Thomas. Unfortunately, the tweet aroused Richardson’s ire. She retweeted it, and wrote, “Stop posting my name & image for clickbait.”

Thomas, however, welcomed the attention, retweeted it and wrote, “If you’re in New York… 👀 I’ll be running the 100 and the 200 this weekend!! 🤗 You can also watch on NBC.”

Thomas is the third-fastest woman in history and second-fastest American at 200 meters, but still yearns to crack 11 seconds in the 100 in a race that counts. She ran 10.80 in April, but that was with a stiff tailwind. She equalled her personal best of 11.00 this season at the Golden Games. Cambrea Sturgis is the top U.S. sprinter this season with a time of 10.87 seconds, which ranks No. 4 in the world.

Richardson started the season late, then ran 10.92 at the Prefontaine Classic, where she was second behind Elaine Thompson-Herah. She ran 10.73 last weekend in Florida, but had a huge tailwind of 4.3 meters per second.

Coleman has the fastest time in the men’s 100-meter field of 10.04 from his third-place finish at the Prefontaine Classic, but he knows he’ll have to dip well under 10 seconds to defend his world title.

Both Coleman and Lyles have byes into the world championships as defending champions in their events.

Lyles will race the 200 for only the third time this year. He clocked 19.86 in early May for the No. 4 time on the world list and then ran 19.72 with the wind barely above the limit to win the Diamond League meet in Doha.

Other big names at the New York meet include three-time Olympic medalist Will Claye, who is opening his season in the triple jump, and 800-meter specialists Clayton Murphy, the 2016 Olympic bronze medalist, and 2022 world indoor champ Ajee’ Wilson.

Like Thomas, McLaughlin is entered in two races, although hers are only 10 minutes apart. And unlike Thomas, McLaughlin is not entered in her signature event. Rather than run the 400 hurdles, she’ll run the 400 and the 100 hurdles. Last Sunday, she clocked 51.61 in her first 400 hurdles race of the season in Nashville. That was only .15 off her world record and was a faster time than the one posted by the 400 meter winner who didn’t have to jump over 10 hurdles. There was some debate over the placement of the fifth hurdle — some observers thought it was 5 meters off its usual mark — but World Athletics still counts the time as the world leader.

McLaughlin has run only one other race so far this season, the 100m hurdles at the Penn Relays in late April, where she ran 12.75 for the victory. McLaughlin then got married in May before resuming her track season.

In her international career, which included a trip to the Olympics at age 17 in 2016, McLaughlin lacks only a world title. She was second in 2019 to Dalilah Muhammad, the former world record holder.

All eyes will be on Holloway’s head as he steps to the starting line in the 110 hurdles. He says he runs his best with a shaved head. Holloway raced only once in the hurdles this season, clocking 13.34 seconds, which is well off his best of 12.81. He will be challenged by Devon Allen, who placed fourth at the Tokyo Olympics and has the third-fastest time this year, 13.11 from his Penn Relays win.

Michael Cherry will have put in some serious mileage when he gets in the blocks. The favorite in the men’s 400, Cherry raced to a third-place finish at the Diamond League in Rome on Thursday. He also has a bye into the World Championships as the 2021 Diamond League victor in his event.

That’s not the case for most of the U.S. athletes in New York. However, they hope that if they can make it there, they can make it anywhere.