Reigning Olympic long jump champion has blasted American sprint legend Michael Johnson following his remarks on why he chose to snub field events in his Grand Slam Track League.
A furious shared a video with her husband Hunter Woodhall, in which they slammed Michael Johnson for coming back and trying to ruin the sport by claiming that he was helping grow it.
Tara Davis-Woodhall noted that it is called track and field for a reason, and he should not try to fabricate things to work in his favour. She pointed out that, in fact, should have saved the sport when he was an active athlete and urged him to stay away since he had already retired.
Olympics long jump champion Tara Davis-Woodhall was left gushing over her Paralympics star husband Hunter Woodhall, terming him ‘perfect specimen’ in her latest post.
She also touched on the impact field events have made in the world of track and field and asserted that they do not need any help from the four-time .
“First of all, happy Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for everything and thankful for my sport. About my sport, it does not need saving at all. It’s actually, Michael, you are ruining the sport if you are trying to save just track…it’s track and field for a reason,” Tara Davis-Woodhall said.
“The field events actually do have a lot of impact on the sport and we don’t need your saving and you are long gone, your time has passed and if you wanted to change the sport, you would have done it a long time ago, instead you were skipping out of the sport. The sport does not need you.”
Joining her in reprimanding Michael Johnson, her husband revealed that he should stop making things up to gain favour and popularity and agreed with his wife that the American legend should just stay away from the sport completely.
Hunter Woodhall added that this year’s did great, insisting that the sport is doing well and they do not need any interventions.
“Stop coming back and just being so self-important and just saying wild things to just get a rise out of people because no one cares, to be honest, at all and we are doing just fine. I don’t know if you saw the Olympics, they were great,” he said.
Michael Johnson has given a candid explanation of why he could not include field events in his Grand Slam Track league.
Meanwhile, their comments come after had an interview with and noted that he has no ability to save track and field as a whole and would only focus on track events.
The former 200m and 400m world record holder revealed that field events take long hours to conclude and would not be ideal for TV coverage hence his decision to also snub them. He also insisted that for a or Olympic Games set up, it is ideal to have both track and field but he cannot involve both and he had to pick his battles wisely.
“I love this sport. But I have had time to reconcile the fact that if we continue to just do the same thing, tell people that ‘you should love this’ or ‘you should understand this’ – that doesn’t work,” Michael Johnson said.
Junelle Bromfield has credited her late mother for inspiring her athletics journey and noted that she was the only person who would attend her track meets faithfully.
“Grand Slam Track is track, that is what we’re doing. I am going to save what I think I can save; I think I can save track, I don’t think I can save track and field. Putting the two together works at the Olympics and World Championships, but I’m not sure it works when you’re trying to create a professional sport outside of those global competitions.”