By Madi Layton
TrackTown USA’s Summer Series, which will debut this summer with one meet July 29, will feature teams based out of four U.S. cities, Portland, San Francisco, New York City and Philadelphia, and other characteristics of other professional sports, including a draft.
Tracktown USA president Vin Lananna said about 70 athletes have already declared their intention to apply.
“We’re all fired up about what’s going on,” he said.
In interviews with fans from each of the host cities, Tracktown CEO Michael Reilly said, TrackTown found that spectators enjoy a team scoring aspect.
“We thought we would try to find a way to translate that to the professional season,” Reilly said.
Reilly said there will be just 10 total events, meaning events in each discipline will have to be limited. For example, potentially they could decide to take long jump over triple jump and contest a limited number of short sprint events.
Athletes, Lananna and Reilly said, are interested.
“Obviously when you get an athlete like Brenda Martinez, an athlete like Boris Berian to declare their intention to draft,” Reilly said, “we like the direction that this is heading.”
Martinez won an 800-meter bronze medal at the 2013 IAAF World Championships, and Berian won the 2016 Pre Classic 800 meters and the 2016 indoor world title.
Turning to a focus on international events, Lananna addressed concerns that the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will have to be postponed due to an outbreak of the Zika virus.
“Obviously, it’s a serious concern that everybody has with the Zika virus, but I don’t think this is much different than many of the other things that have happened,” Lananna said. “At every Olympics I can remember, there’s been something, whether it’s Athens and infrastructure or smog in Beijing or traffic in London. so I’m confident that the Olympics is such an important thing that we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
