BREAKING NEWS: a high-profile Olympic medalist has signed with the Grand Slam Track League, committing to eight races over four meets throughout the 2025 track season, thrilling fans of championship-style racing and head-to-head competition. Stop me if this sounds familiar or repetitive… because the deep-pocketed masterminds over at Kyle Merber’s new office have been extra busy this week.

Yesterday, 11 new Racers were rolled out, bringing the grand total up to 30. The new crop of athletes included Olympic champion Marileidy Paulino, multisport fan favorite Devon Allen, and representation from seven different nations. You can find more information on the latest signees here.

Four of the twelve categories now have a full roster of “Racers,” the in-house talent committed to taking on a rotating cast of challengers over the course of the season. Now that those slots are filled, we get to embark on an exciting next step in the sports-fan process: speculating about how the competition will play out months before the first spike is laced up.

W100m/100H: Who’s got the flat speed?

Racers: Masai Russell, Cyrena Samba-Mayela, Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, Ackera Nugent

For the last several seasons, the women’s 100m hurdles has been one of the most exciting events in track and field because: the top-tier athletes are historically fast, and they race each other very often. With the full Paris Olympic podium plus the fastest woman of 2024 signed to the league, those elements remain in place headed into 2025. Nugent, Russell, and Camacho-Quinn are all in the top-10 all-time with lifetime bests of 12.24, 12.25, and 12.26. In all likelihood, this quartet will shuffle places like a deck of cards on the hurdles side.

So who takes home the glory (and the riches) will come down to how things shake out in the flat 100m. Nugent has the fastest lifetime best at 11.09, but she ran that time back in 2021 and none of her competitors have seriously focused on the 100m in recent seasons. The intrigue here is the total mystery offered by 50% of the races on tap.

M200m/400m: How fast can they go?

Racers: Quincy Hall, Matthew Hudson-Smith, Muzala Samukonga, Jereem Richards

2024 was a real “iron sharpens iron” year in the men’s 400m. The top four finishers in Paris (also the four GST signees) all ran their lifetime best in the final, and the gold and silver medalists, Hall and Hudson-Smith, both clocked three sub-44s apiece despite only breaking the barrier for the first time this year. It’s clear that the rising talent and wide variety of racing styles in the event have forced everyone to level up, and now Wayde van Niekerk’s 43.03 world record doesn’t seem nearly quite as far off as it did twelve months ago. And what better place to take it down than in a league founded by Michael Johnson?

W400m/400H: How will the “Sydney Effect” shape the field?

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Jasmine Jones, Shamier Little, Rushell Clayton

Unless something dramatic and unexpected happens in the offseason, there isn’t a lot of ambiguity around the eventual winner of the women’s “long hurdles” category. It’ll be Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the best 400m hurdler in the world and a sub-49 flat 400m runner to boot. The more interesting questions from SML joining MJ’s ostensibly competition-focused league is how eight non-championship races a season will impact McLaughlin-Levrone’s training style and whether four shots at the 400m are enough for the 25-year-old to challenge Sanya Richards-Ross’s American record (she’s only 0.04 seconds off).

But McLaughlin-Levrone’s dominance tends to drag her competitors to historic times as well, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see someone like 22-year-old Jasmine Jones make a huge jump forward simply by chasing her fellow American around the track all season. The third, fourth, and fifth fastest runners on the 400H all-time list all have one thing in common: they ran their lifetime bests in a race won by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.

M800/1500m: How will tactics affect point totals?

Josh Kerr, Cole Hocker, Yared Nuguse, Marco Arop

The addition of reigning 800m World champion Marco Arop to a group that, before yesterday, was full of 1500m specialists throws an interesting wrench into the “short distance” category. Arop can likely run away from any miler in the first lap of an 800m, and conversely, he’s probably vulnerable to a hard push from two laps out in a 1500m. Here, the identities of the four Challengers in any given meet may play a big role in the eventual point totals. If Arop can drag out a couple fellow 1:41 guys far enough ahead of the milers so they can only kick up to fourth or fifth place, he can use the field to limit how dangerous his main competition will be. And if Kerr, Hocker, or Nuguse is smart, they won’t want the longer event to come down to a battle of pure footspeed against a guy who’s run a 46.10 open 400m.

Ideally, the whole point of the Racers vs. Challengers format is that you get an intriguing mix of season-long narratives and unique race dynamics. So far, it seems like the fields that have delivered on that promise – and with roughly half the field yet to be announced, the news will hopefully continue to feel more like the Avengers assembling and less like Groundhog Day.