'You'd be pretty dirty': Five Aussies, including Jessica Hull, left in the lurch as Olympic champion's league files for bankruptcy

Jessica Hull is one of five Australian athletes owed hefty amounts of money from a bankrupt athletics league run by Olympic sprinting champion Michael Johnson, who's in a multimillion-dollar fight to revive the product and save his reputation.

Ahead of the inaugural season of Grand Slam Track, which in 2025 hosted meets in Jamaica and the United States, Johnson said he was aiming to revolutionise athletics by enticing athletes to compete more often, fattening up their earnings and growing the sport's fanbase.

Grand Slam Track's founder and CEO said he'd secured more than AUD$45 million in financial commitments from investors and he unveiled a pool of prize money totalling $19 million — the biggest stash of prize money ever assembled by an athletics league.

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But six months after the completion of season one — the fourth and final leg scheduled for Los Angeles was cancelled due to financial issues — the league is on life support and athletes are still owed a collective amount in the millions, having only received 50 per cent of what they were guaranteed.

Grand Slam Track filed for bankruptcy in the US this week. Its publicly available submission indicates it's owing between $15-75 million in liabilities, including debt to athletes and vendors.

GST filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US Bankruptcy Court or, as a league press release put it, a "court-supervised reorganisation", meaning it's hoping to remain in business.

The GST press release said its filing was "a necessary reset focused on long-term stability and sustainable growth", as well as "a chance to bring in new investors and partners once legacy liabilities have been resolved".

The five Australians who competed in the inaugural season were Hull, Abbey Caldwell, Sarah Carli, Peter Bol and Ky Robinson.

Hull, as the only Australian contracted to compete in all four of the scheduled meets, is owed considerably more than the other Australians.

Going by the publicly available prize money breakdown and Hull's results, the Olympic silver medallist guaranteed for herself $142,000 in prize money with her performances in Kingston, Miami and Philadelphia.

That does not include the base payment she was guaranteed as one of 48 athletes contracted to run at all four scheduled events.

All athletes, whether fully contracted or not, had travel and accommodation covered by the league.

Jessica's dad and coach, Simon, admitted the situation was disappointing but stressed that they were determined to not let the issues distract them.

"Obviously you don't wanna see her lose money. It's frustrating. I'd love to see her get paid. She did a lot of promotional stuff for them," Simon told Wide World of Sports.

"But at the end of the day, if they don't have the money, they don't have the money.

"You take a risk when you sign up with a new venture. You're hoping that it sort of does what it's talked up to do, but it just didn't deliver at the end of the day.

"I'm not going to lose sleep over it and neither is Jessica, because there are too many races and there's too much training and you don't want to have something in the back of your mind worrying you.

"She's on the right track. The big goal for us is getting the gold medal [in the 1500m at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics], and you can't let anything interrupt that.

"So you just let your agent deal with that."

Athletes were paid 50 per cent of their owed money in the first week of October.

The final meet of the inaugural season was held in Philadelphia on the last weekend of May.

"You wouldn't like to go to work and lose what you're owed — you'd be pretty dirty," Simon added.

"Some may have gone in and they tell you how much you'll earn and you probably think, 'Well, that'd be pretty great, I could do this with it, I can pay a deposit on a house or whatever', and then it doesn't turn up."

One major reason behind the Hull camp's decision to sign up for GST was the opportunity to race over 800 metres.

Key to the 29-year-old's hopes of winning gold in the 1500m at the LA Olympics is racing regularly over 800m to sharpen her speed.

Jessica entered GST's "short-distance" race category, meaning she competed over 800m and 1500m at each of the three meets.

At the world athletics championships in Tokyo in September, the Albion Park product broke the Australian 800m record and reached the final of the two-lap event.

She clung on for bronze in her pet 1500m event, denying a Kenyan sweep of the podium.

"She got in some good races [in GST], it's an experience, you do it, you move on," Simon said.

"It's about having big goals, which after Paris is basically getting to LA in shape.

"It's not about the money for us; money comes with performance. So we're not really chasing money and deals and things because as she's got medals and that, we've seen the money come, with sponsorship and people who wanna be part of the team and stuff. So that [money] was never an issue.

"The issue for us was we needed to be able to run the 800m. She got a world champ qualifier in the first race in Jamaica in the 800m. It was guaranteed that she would run 800m and 1500m over the same weekend against world-class opposition [in Kingston], so for me that was ideal because I knew she would benefit from it and I had an idea of what she could do once she was in the field.

"So as far as that goes for next season, with any Diamond League she can get in the 800m, 1500m or 5km. She can take her pick of events. The big organisers are already approaching her about what she wants to do at their meets."

According to The Athletic, GST had only received $19 million in financial commitments rather than the $45 million it claimed to have attained in a June 2024 press release.

The Athletic also reported one company had signed a preliminary, non-binding document flagging commitments totalling $60 million, before pulling out because it was left underwhelmed by the opening meet.

"After the withdrawal of a committed investment earlier this year, we worked tirelessly to secure replacement funding, meet our obligations, and keep GST moving forward," this week's GST press release said.

"With every alternative fully explored, moving into a court-supervised reorganisation ... became the clearest path to protect our community and our mission."

While the base payments guaranteed to the fully contracted athletes are not public knowledge, WWOS understands after speaking to a range of industry sources that the other athletes, known as "challengers", were promised $3000 (US$2000) appearance fees per meet.

With that in mind, as well as the knowledge that all athletes have received 50 per cent of the money they were guaranteed, Caldwell is likely still owed about $20,000, Carli $13,000, Bol $17,000 and Robinson $24,000.

American sprinters Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and Kenny Bednarek, who were fully contracted athletes, stood to earn a league-high $450,000 in prize money alone come the end of the season.

GST's headline act this year was American superstar Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who stood to earn $375,000 in prize money come season's end.

Some agents WWOS has talked to said they harboured no ill feelings toward GST.

They explained that racing in the league complemented their athletes' seasons well, spoke glowingly of how their athletes were accommodated for, and said Johnson had good intentions.

Agents also said receiving 50 per cent of the money owed from the embattled league had come as a pleasant surprise, and noted that the Diamond League had become more generous financially due to the competition it was suddenly up against.

Another agent, who wished to remain anonymous because of the sensitive nature of events, told WWOS: "It is a very sad situation for the athletes. They have lost money and they compromised themselves with these events."

WWOS spoke to agents of both Australian and international athletes.

"It's a frustrating situation, obviously, having set up our seasons around that [GST]," Jessica's agent, the Arizona-based Stephen Haas, told WWOS.

"Of course, I don't think anybody's happy with where it's gone.

"We were hoping that this could be a viable option for the future in terms of having competition for the Diamond League, but I don't think it was necessarily run the right way and obviously there's consequences now."

Simon defended Johnson's character but admitted the four-time Olympic gold medallist's business plan was questionable.

"I don't think Michael Johnson went out there to rort people of money. I don't think those were his intentions at all," Simon said.

"It's not the greatest business plan when you don't actually have the cash in the bank but you are promising a delivery. So there were a few mistakes obviously made on his part.

"I think he intended to try and put some growth into the sport, get more eyeballs on it.

"So, no, I don't think he went in with wrong intentions, because then all of a sudden he's gone from American hero to, 'Oh, this guy's ripped off all these athletes'.

"He went out there with a goal and he had people promising him money ... I think he just screwed up."

Johnson is remaining defiant.

"Grand Slam Track was founded to create a professional platform that reflects the talent and dedication of this sport's athletes," Johnson said in the statement.

"While GST has faced significant challenges that have caused frustrations for many — myself included — I refuse to give up on the mission of Grand Slam Track and the future we are building together."