Two-time Guatemalan Olympian and national record holder Luis Grijalva has signed with Grand Slam Track as a Racer ahead of the professional track league’s inaugural season in 2025.

Here’s what you need to know:

– Grijalva joins Grand Slam Track as the third Racer in the “long distance” category that will contest the 3000m and 5000m at each respective Slam. The league announced the signing of 5000m Olympic silver medalist Ronald Kwemoi and 5000m and 10,000m Olympic bronze medalist Grant Fisher earlier this month. They will receive points for their finishing position in the two races. After the two events, the athlete with the highest point total will win the Slam and the $100,000 prize for first place. One contracted Racer spot remains in the category.

– Grijalva finished fourth in the 5000m at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships. After running a personal best of 12:50.58 at the Oslo Diamond League in May, he looked poised to be a medal contender at the Paris Olympics but sustained an injury in training in the week leading up to the Games. Hindered by the injury, he failed to advance out of the prelims of the 5000m.

– Grijalva owns a 3000m personal best of 7:29.43 from the 2023 Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon. He finished third in the 3000m at this year’s Stockholm Diamond League in a season’s best of 7:33.96.

– Grijalva made headlines in 2021 since he required special permission from the U.S. government to travel outside of the United States due to his immigration status as a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. He opened up about putting DACA and Dreamers in the Olympic spotlight in a February 2022 episode of The CITIUS MAG Podcast. He has since secured a O-1 visa, for people with extraordinary abilities or achievements in the sciences, arts, education, business or sports, which allows him to travel.

Head-To-Head

– Fisher has a 5–2 head-to-head record over Grijalva over 5000m and 1–0 edge over 3000m.

– Grijalva has never raced Kwemoi.

Q&A On Joining Grand Slam Track and Reflections On The 2024 Season

The following interview with Luis Grijalva has been edited lightly for length and clarity.

Chris Chavez: Alright, now we welcome on two-time Guatemalan Olympian and national record holder Luis Grijalva, fresh off of a workout. Has the build for the 2025 season already started, is that what I’m hearing?

Luis Grijalva: Yeah, it’s started. Actually, I was in the weight room for the first time in forever, so we’re changing some things up this year. First weight room session of the year I guess.

How does it feel, coming off the Paris Olympics, taking a little bit of a break, and now looking to 2025 which has lots of new and exciting things on the horizon?

It’s pretty exciting, some big key races that are coming up fairly soon. I’m just kind of turning the page on the 2024 season. I didn’t have the best showing at the Olympics, and I have a chip on my shoulder. I feel like I’m really excited to start fresh. New season, new races, new competition, different people, and just kind of get the ball rolling again. It’s been quite some time since I last raced, and honestly I just want to get back into racing because I feel like this year was very limited in terms of what I could do, in terms of racing and a little bit of training as well. A lot went on in the 2024 season, but we’re here now.

So, the big news is that you’ve officially signed on as a Racer with Grand Slam Track, and you’ll be competing in the long distance category. That means you’ll be racing unpaced, no rabbits, 3000m and 5000m at four Grand Slam events throughout the year. What drew you to agreeing to join the league and what are you most excited for?

At this point in my career, I’ve been in these big Diamond League races where they just set up the rabbit in a 12:40 race or however fast you want to run, and I feel like in 2023 and the 2024 season I had a lot of experience in time trialing efforts. But I think one thing about being a Guatemalan is that to make the team you just have to run the time. I lack a bit of a championship racing style, and I feel like sometimes I miss that up until the World Championships or the Olympic Games. So I’m actually very excited to sign with Grand Slam Track because I really enjoy racing. Time trialing is fun and all, but I’ve run 12:50 in the 5K, and there’s only so much of a difference between 12:40 and 12:50. I figure at this point in my career, it’s not the world record, I just want to compete and I just want to race.

I like the setup of how they use no rabbits, because I just love that. It reminds me of back in college when I was able to not worry about time and just compete at the conference meet or the national meet. It’s not about time, it’s just about beating people. That’s the most fun way to race because nobody cares about the time, they just want to see who wins. With only eight guys in the field and the races spread out over a couple days, it’s going to be very exciting to see, and you never know what’s going to happen. It could go out really fast, it could go out really slow, they could wind it up the last 1K, or it could be a 400m kick, but I just really love racing. That’s the cool thing about the World Championships and the Olympics, is that it’s pure racing. You don’t have to worry about trying to hit 60s or 61s, it’s just about beating the people in front of you and behind you.

The last two years at the World Championships, in 2022 and 2023, you’ve finished fourth in the 5K, so that’s evidence of your championship ability without the pacemakers. So describe for the normal people who aren’t at the professional level, what is the difference when you go to these Diamond Leagues and they’re setting the pace for 12:40 and you end up sixth. You may get a PR, but does that feel just as good as finishing higher up at a World Championships?

I like to think of it as championship racing and rabbit racing are two different sports. 12:50 is kind of mastering that cadence of anywhere from 60 seconds for 400m to 62, so it’s a different strategy versus a World Championships. Typically nobody’s going to go out and push the pace from the front because it’s very challenging to do that. This is a great setup to just run and compete. That’s why I like championship racing, because you don’t ever have to worry about time, you just focus on your tactics and being tactically aware. It’s about making the right decisions and problem-solving in the moment, rather than just running behind in a single-file line in 10th or sixth place.

12:50 is an incredible achievement and it’s something I’m very proud of, but at the end of the day I was just on the inside rail the whole time and didn’t have to go around anyone until the last 100m. So it was very straightforward, versus championship racing where you have to think so much. There are some races at World Championships where you have to be focused, and somebody wants to cut inside and you can’t let them, or you’ve got to press on the straightaways. You don’t want to be boxed in and stuck on a rail, but also you don’t want to run too far outside of lane one, so it’s just being tactically aware of the situation you’re going to be in. Honestly, it’s just two different sports.

At previous global championships, from 2022 up to the Olympics this year, that race has been run anywhere from 13:09 to 13:13 for the win, so that’s more of a hard last mile where they close in 3:55 or last 1K in 2:21 to 2:23. I’m just mad at positioning, that’s all it really is, because I came at it from two different perspectives. In 2022, I kind of put myself out in front, and then with 1K to go people started getting around me and I had to close really hard. Whereas in Budapest, I felt like I ran that 90% perfectly up until the last 400m where I didn’t do a good job defending my positioning heading into the bell lap. I just got boxed in and kind of swarmed and jumped by six guys I had to go around in the last 100m, versus time trial efforts that are pretty straight forward.

Yeah, everyone just strings out and you finish where you finish. That does make this so interesting, and you’re the first athlete I’ve spoken to that’s involved with Grand Slam Track that has emphasized that this is going to be great practice for championship racing. The evidence will come next September in Tokyo when we see how many Racers end up medaling at the World Championships because of different tactics they learned in the early season races with Grand Slam.

It’s going to be big. I know the U.S. Championships are something really special, so I feel like a lot of the American athletes have that experience in terms of championship racing, but it’s also a bit of a disadvantage because you have to really peak for that race in order to get onto that team.

For me, I know it’ll be eight of the best guys in the world, so you just have to know and understand that the spread from first place to eighth is going to be a second or two. In that small of a field, you have to understand that it’s going to be wire-to-wire with eight of the best guys in the world, you won’t just have a random guy in there. Grand Slam Track does a good job of picking the athletes they want to race, and everything’s going to be so competitive. And that’s why this whole league started, because you want competitive situations. In Oslo this past year, there were two guys there with 1200m to go. They ran 12:36, which is very inspiring and incredible, but I think people really enjoy the heart of racing where with 100m to go there’s six guys fighting for that top spot. It’s more exciting.

Time trialing is its own beauty in its own way, but pure racing reminds me of when I was in high school and college just having fun.

And on top of that, you’re going to be getting paid really well whether you’re in first or you’re in eighth.

It’s honestly pretty incredible, the prize money is really insane. I feel like we’re starting to get paid like the marathoners or the people on the roads. Because with the marathons, you get top American and get this much money, or you’re a top 10 finisher and you get a lot of money, plus the appearance fees. So it’s funny now that the track runners are starting to catch up financially. There are some bigger meets out there where it’s a world-class competition, and you only get $10K when you win. In this, you win a race and you get $100,000, which is an insane amount of money. I think that’s why a lot of the high-end athletes are wanting to commit to these four races, because I just can’t think of a bigger race with that purse. It’s new, it’s fresh, and it’s very exciting for athletes who compete at the highest level on this stage, because sometimes you run 12:50 and then you don’t get paid that.

What did you make for that 12:50? Not bonuses, just straight-up prize money?

I think only $1500, maybe $2000. But that was one of the hardest races ever.

One of the final things is that they’re going to emphasize the rivalries and the guys you’re going to be going up against. So you’re now scheduled to go up against Grant Fisher four times a year, Ronald Kwemoi four times a year, and then there’s another Racer spot. When it comes to racing Grant, he’s had a bit of an edge over you head-to-head. What is it that you like or don’t like about racing Grant? And I guess you’ve never raced Kwemoi so that’ll be interesting too.

It’s a whole new concept. My teammate Abdihamid [Nur] has to race against him every time at the U.S. Championships, and it’s just tactically trying to be aware and cover his moves. Grant’s a very strong runner, he can front run, or wind it out, or kind of kick, so it’s just very intriguing how he runs. He has all the tools to be competitive.

It’s fun because I think I was a freshman in college when he was a junior, and it’s fun seeing all the progression we’ve both made. I don’t want to lose to Grant all the time, I know he’s beaten me so many times, but I think it’s my turn and we’re both at that level where it’s going to be within a second spread. I think we both understand the races can play out in so many different scenarios.

Honestly, I want to kick. I don’t want to go out and push the pace, I just want to be confident in my kick. If I’m confident in myself and confident in my kick, then I know I’m going to beat people when it matters the most. But head-to-head with Grant, the only two times I’ve beaten him were at Worlds in 2022 and in Florence when I ran 12:52 in 2023. So it’s going to be very exciting, and maybe with me and Grant it’ll be a new rivalry of us competing and a new fresh start. Nothing that happened in the past matters, it’s all about this year and all about the races.

I’m trying to think of athletes I’d want to be competing against. I will say the Ethiopians are very dangerous because they know how to front run, they know how to push the pace, they love time trialing. But this scenario is very different from time trialing, this is pure performance, pure kicking. Maybe like a [Berihu] Aregawi or Yomif [Kejelcha]. Someone who’d be really fun to have would be Geordie Beamish. I know he’s a steepler so maybe the 5K would be a little too much for him, but you’re going to be surprised by his kick and got to learn how to beat him there too.

Obviously Jakob Ingebrigtsen is probably the most popular pick. Nico Young could make a case for it, he just did the 3K-5K double indoors, now just try and do it against the best in the world. If Abdi gets healthy again, your whole training group could be Challengers if not Racers at the Slams.

That’d be pretty cool. It’s exciting, I’m really pumped to compete with these athletes, and in some ways it’s very good practice for the global championship racing. The way it happens is you have the prelim and then three days later you have the final, so it kind of replicates that in a way where you have to learn how to recover from the previous race to be your best at the last race. Similar situation but so much more exciting.

I feel like these meets are going to be the biggest meets of the year, other than maybe Worlds, because I feel like everyone’s going to be tuning in just to have a sneak peek and see what it actually is. I think MJ and Kyle have been doing a great job at marketing, and I obviously wanted to be a part of it. It’s very exciting to have something fresh, something new, something fans can kind of follow and be fans of certain athletes. Because at the end of the day, maybe I raced Grant once or twice a year, but now I get to race Grant eight times, nine if you count the World Championships.

That’s very exciting, because I’ve only raced Jakob at Worlds, so it puts people in a very competitive situation.

Alright Luis, we’re super excited for this announcement and excited to see more Racers announced over the next couple weeks because I guess we’re almost at the halfway point and it’s some of the most decorated athletes in the world, so congratulations on signing.

I appreciate it, thanks for having me on. I’m very excited to represent Grand Slam Track at the biggest stage and I think everybody’s going to be watching. I also think everybody wants to be a part of it too, so they’re trying to sneak their name in there, but it makes sense that only the best athletes in the world get to be part of this. It’s a very elite group of athletes that are able to do it and I’m excited to see who are the Challengers and who’ll be the fourth 5K guy.