ZURICH, Switzerland (AFP) — World Athletics President Sebastian Coe says the US track and field team might be “one for the ages” but they need to be better known in their own country ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles might wow on the European stage and be hailed walking down a street in Monaco, Paris or Zurich, but Coe said the fact he and other outstanding domestic talent went largely incognito at home is worrying just three years out from the Summer Games.

The US track and field team has topped the medals table at the world championships 15 times in the 19 editions held to date. The then-East Germany came out on top in the opening two worlds in 1983 and 1987, Russia dominated in 2001 and Kenya in 2015.

For all of the success of the US team on the international stage, athletics remains a minority sport in the United States, notably on television.

That status was compounded by the failure of Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track series this season.

The new format, featuring only track and no field, supposedly offered up duels between the best, and meets took place in 2025 in Kingston, Miami and Philadelphia.

But Johnson, a four-time Olympic sprint gold medallist and now a highly-respected pundit, was forced to cancel the fourth and final meeting in Los Angeles, “to avoid further losses and start the lengthy process of stabilising the company to get back on track”.

Athletes are yet to be paid their appearance fees and prize money.

The series was able to recruit stars such as US Olympic 200m champion Gabby Thomas and 400m hurdles world record holder and double Olympic gold medallist Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.

But it failed to recruit a host of top sprinting talent including the reigning men’s and women’s Olympic 100m champions Lyles and Julien Alfred.

While the competitors expressed enthusiasm for the series, there were clear signs it had failed to capture the imagination of fans.

There were swathes of empty seats at the opening meeting in Kingston, while for the third meeting in Philadelphia, the programme was cut from three days to two.

“It is really important that you have a glide path to an Olympic Games that showcases the best of your national talent, and ideally on a domestic stage,” Coe told media at the Diamond League finals in Zurich.

“This is not a new challenge. The college system is thriving, but with challenges… it remains a challenge.

“We brought the world championships to Eugene a few years ago [in 2022] and that was really, again, attempting that glide path.”

World Athletics, or IAAF as it was known previously, also held the world junior championships in Eugene in 2014 and then the world indoor championships in Portland in 2016.

Those efforts, Coe said, should not be seen as “a one-off, but as a way of trying to build interest in the sport”.

“The twin challenge — and it’s always been there, it’s not a new one — is that you still have some of the most extraordinary, talented athletes, like Noah,” Coe said.

“The American track and field team is one for the ages. They can’t walk around Zurich without being bombarded outside hotels.

“But in the street they’re still walking with relative anonymity in their hometowns, and that’s always been the disconnect.

“So it is important in the lead-up to Los Angeles that they do look at this, and we do what we can to help.”

COE…it is really important that you have a glide path to an Olympic Games that showcases the best of your national talent, and ideally on a domestic stage 

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