Kingston heats up this weekend as Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track debuts. The format isn’t just new, but it’s revolutionary! Then think, what happens when you force Olympic champions to race outside their specialty? That’s exactly what the 200m/400m legend wants to find out. The world’s elite track stars now face their ultimate test: dominating unfamiliar territory. Can specialists become versatile warriors? America’s 1500m ace Cole Hocker is also part of the list and will be diving headfirst into the 800m against Paris Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi! Hocker has a challenge on his hands. What’s brewing in the mind of the 1500m Paris Olympic gold medalist as he prepares to race outside his comfort zone?

Cole Hocker isn’t fazed by the new Grand Slam Track format, and the Olympic 1500m champion knows exactly what he brings to the table as he prepares to face off against the 800m Olympic champion! “I feel like I kind of carry speed with me more so than I carry the endurance,” Hocker revealed to the CITIUS MAG Youtube channel on 3rd April. His confidence jumps off the screen! “It’s not every day you race the Olympic champion in the 800 meter…. I think I can get a little sharper as the season goes. But, again, I’m confident in that speed that I kind of carry with me and just see what I got.”

The innovative format? Athletes compete in two races within their “Race Group.” For Hocker, that’s the Short Distance group, tackling both 800m and 1500m. Winners get 12 points, runners-up get 8, and so on down to 1 point for eighth place. Whoever racks up the most combined points? They’re crowned “Slam Champion!” Some have questioned how runners will handle racing without pacemakers, but Hocker brushes off these concerns. “It’s funny that’s such a big talking point, and obviously you know I’ve talked about it, but I feel like as an American we race so much at trials in USAs. Like this past trials, I raced six times or five times without the rabbit. I’ve done more races without rabbits than I have with…so it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me.”

The format doesn’t change his competitive drive. “You don’t technically have to win one of the races to win the thing, but I always want to win the race….. It’s easier that the 1500s first, especially for us 1500 guys, to where I can just fully, send it on that one and then see what I have left for the eight hundred.” Also, Cole Hocker feels he doesn’t have an interesting strategy for 800m. But one thing is for sure, that, “I’m going to try to win that as well.”

Hocker’s recent performance at the 2025 Millrose Games showed his elite status in 3000m short track, and while Grant Fisher set a new World Record in the 3,000m (7:22.91), Hocker’s second-place finish (7:23.14) also broke the previous world record set by Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma in 2023.

Though dominant at 3000m and 1500m, Hocker faces a new frontier in the 800m, which is somewhat uncharted territory for the 1500m Olympic champion.

Cole Hocker hasn’t raced much in 800m

Cole Hocker has made only occasional appearances in the 800m throughout his career, with just a handful of races each year showing his development in this distance back in 2021. He popped up at that Los Angeles track and threw down a solid 1:46.39. Then he disappeared from the 800m scene until showing up in Hungary the next year with a 1:47.59. Isn’t it a classic Hocker move, right? Just testing the waters without fully committing.

In 2023, he made another rare appearance at Hayward Field with a 1:47.23. But get this—his 2024 run in Portland? A surprising 1:45.63 on a high school track of all places! For someone who barely touches this distance, that’s pretty impressive.

His indoor appearances are just as scarce—a 1:48.44 in Arkansas and 1:49.21 in Chicago a year later.  The global 800m scene is currently dominated by Emmanuel Wanyonyi (Kenya, 1:41.19) and Marco Arop (Canada, 1:41.20) (These are last year’s Olympic times) who are part of the lineup in Grand Slam Track as well.