Track and field has a problem.

Its problem is, for one week every four years, it’s the biggest show in town.

Track and field ,as we witnessed once again at Paris 2024, is the lynchpin of the Olympic Games.

But, for the other 207 weeks of the Olympic cycle, these athletes become almost anonymous, outwith athletics circles anyway.

Track and field, to its credit, recognises this issue, and there’s several initiatives afoot to try to address the problem of the sport dropping off the radar almost the minute the Olympic Games end.

Money is being pumped in from several different directions in an attempt to consistently maintain athletics’ profile.

One of the all-time greats of the sport, Michael Johnson, has launched a lucrative new athletics league called Grand Slam Track. Beginning in 2025, the league will stage four races a year and offer a total annual prize pot of over $12 million, with $100,000 going to top finishers.

The sport’s governing body, World Athletics, announced the first Ultimate Championships, which will be hosted in Budapest in 2026 and will showcase the best of the best in the sport.

And the Diamond League, track and field’s premier annual series, plans to increase its gender-equal prize money next season, with the total prize money per discipline reaching up to $50,000 and at the final up to $100,000.

All are interesting initiatives.

But for me, the most intriguing launched this week.

On Thursday evening in New York, Athlos debuted.

It’s a female-only athletics event that was the brain-child of Alexis Ohanian, who is the tech entrepreneur and husband of........

© Herald Scotland