Just after 10 p.m. on Thursday night, a crowd gathered on the track at Icahn Stadium in New York City. As lights started pulsing across the stage set on the infield, three teenage girls behind me screamed and ran toward it just as Megan Thee Stallion appeared. Her set closed out Athlos NYC, the women’s-only track meet boasting the highest prize purse in the sport.
Most track meets don’t end with a performance from a Grammy Award–winning artist. But Athlos isn’t your typical track meet. It felt more like a highly produced show, from pyrotechnics during the athlete walk-outs to light-up bracelets that blinked in rhythm with DJ D-Nice’s set, to bestowing the winning runners with a Tiffany crown. Pink and magenta lights flashed around the perimeter of the track. A VIP section with black couches and high-top tables lined the front of the grandstand where celebrities and track and field royalty mingled.
And that was the point. “Normally, track meets are all about track. They’re all about sitting in your seat and watching a race. This is about celebrating track, celebrating the runners,” three-time Olympic gold medalist Gabby Thomas said during a huddle with press the day before the race.
The concept is simple—showcase women athletes. Thirty-six of the fastest women (with 30 Olympic medals among them). Custom mini bibs that fit the women’s torsos rather than the typical oversized ones. Six races (ranging from 100m to 1500m). Big prize money and revenue-sharing opportunities. (The winner of each race netted $60,000, twice what was paid to the winner of the Diamond League Finals. Second place earned $25,000, while $10,000 was awarded for third, $8,000 for fourth, $5,000 for fifth, and $2,500 for sixth!)
The meet is the brainchild of Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian (husband to Serena Williams). After talking to a number of runners, including Thomas, he saw untapped potential and undervalued athletes. “Folks have been making decisions based on legacy media deals and what they think people want,” Ohanian told SELF ahead of the event. “But you miss out on a ton of other storytelling because you’re not getting to the why. You’re not getting into more depth about the athletes, the humans themselves.”
Track lends itself to unique storytelling, he says—there’s a natural cadence, with an intermission between events that allows spectators to learn more about the competitors and get hyped up, so when the starting pistol goes off, you’re locked in on the race. And if he wanted to build an event that could bring in more fans and keep them engaged outside of just the Olympics, it meant centering it on women athletes, who dominate social media. “Online culture is culture,” he said. “If you want to tell a story for the youth to care about, for younger generations of sports fans, you start there.”
And the younger fans were in attendance. They lined the entrance to the stadium with signs in hand, screaming when athletes arrived and asking for selfies and autographs.
The event also gave the athletes a chance to show off their personalities, something they might not do at other meets. “Track has always been very serious. You get on the track and you go—but being here and being able to showcase some style, it’s definitely amazing,” Lynna Irby-Jackson told SELF about her “girly, tomboy” red-carpet style.
We tagged along as the Olympic champ got ready for Athlos last week.
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From Nia Akins’s sleek orange suit, Brittany Brown’s black catsuit, Candace Hill’s ’90s-inspired look, and Tonea Marshall’s Naomi Osaka x Nike collab, the tunnel ’fits ranged from fun and playful to high-end designer.
“We’re just being girls,” Jasmine Camacho-Quinn told SELF—she won the event’s 100m hurdles, capping off a season that also included an Olympic bronze medal and Diamond League final title. “We never really have this opportunity. This is really good for us. We’re able to just get out of work mode, in a sense, and still enjoy the time.”
While they all came to compete, there was a collective recognition that this meet wasn’t just about the money. “This is bigger than myself. It’s bigger than this race. It’s really about what we’re doing for women’s sport,” Thomas said. “We love competing and it’s what we do. We’re going to share that with the world and hopefully push the sport further.”
