Having locked in Usain Bolt to run in Melbourne this summer, organisers are chasing Australian superstar hurdler Sally Pearson to be captain of the Australian team.
Pearson likes the new Nitro concept but coming back from injuries and having not competed for more than a year she is uncertain if the novel concept will work for her.
Sally Pearson is weighing up involvement in the Nitro series.Credit:Getty Images
"I like the idea of what they're trying to do and what they're trying to achieve for our sport," Pearson said.
"So we'll have to wait and see what happens. I would like to be a part of it but it's just a matter of whether we can all agree on the contract.
"At the end of the day, if it is not for me, it's not for me. I'm an individual athlete and I'm coming back from a couple of serious injuries so I have to make sure that my body is going to hold up through to the world championships next year."
The former Olympic and world champion could not run at the Olympics in Rio this year nor at the world championships in Beijing last year.
Nitro is a teams event with athletes competing in a range of regular and unorthodox athletics events.
Pearson could compete in the 100-metre hurdles relay, which is a mixed relay event where women run in three odd-numbered lanes and the men run back down the same straight in the opposite direction in three even-numbered lanes over the higher hurdles.
Equally, Pearson is one of Australia's best flat sprint runners and Nitro will have 100, 150 and 60 sprints and a mixed medley relay where women run two 200-metre legs, followed by a male 400 and a male 800.
Australia will only field one team in Nitro along, with England, Japan, China, The Bolt All Stars and New Zealand forming the other teams. The US will not form its own team for this series but will have athletes in the Bolt All Stars.
Bolt will run at least once on each of the three nights of the series and will captain/coach his All Stars team. He is interested in having Tasmanian teen sprinter Jack Hale join his team.
Australia or the All Stars are interested in high-profile female athletes hurdler Michelle Jenneke and sprinter Melissa Breen.
Borrowing from short-form cricket and other sports Nitro will have a power play where teams can designate a strong event to try to secure double points and a steal play where they can target another team's weaker event and try to beat that team and claim 50 per cent of their points.
There will also be a turbo charge in the long jump where jumpers declare from the runway ahead of a jump that they will clear a certain difficult distance (probably eight metres for men, 6.6 metres for women).
The event will be held over three nights at Melbourne's Lakeside Stadium between February 4 and 11. Lakeside has a capacity of about 6000 but temporary stands will increase that by 2000. An athletics meet at the venue has never had more than 3000.
Nitro is unashamedly an entertainment-first product and so will adapt events to suit the entertainment value thus for instance in the mile race the slowest competitor after each lap will be eliminated.
There will be a three-minute endurance race with the men racing first then female teammates beginning from where the men finish immediately afterwards almost as a relay.
The concept has not met with universal approval as some Australian athletes are sceptical of the venture, the amount of money involved, what value it will give the sport longer term and how it will help the athlete's high-performance program.
Michael Gleeson is an award-winning senior sports writer specialising in AFL and athletics.