Femke Bol at the Ostrava Golden Spike (© Pavel Lebeda / sport-pics.cz)
Global senior champions Femke Bol and Jakob Ingebrigtsen, plus rising stars Lurdes Gloria Manuel and Gout Gout, have been announced for the Ostrava Golden Spike, a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting, on 24 June.
World 400m hurdles gold medallist Bol will contest the 400m at the Golden Spike, where she will be joined by her new training partner Manuel, the world U20 champion who was born in Ostrava.
Dutch star Bol set a world 400m short track record of 49.17 indoors last year and has an outdoor best of 49.44, while Manuel set a Czech U20 record of 50.59 at last year’s Golden Spike and improved to 50.52 at the European Championships.
The meeting record of 49.67 has stood since 1983.
Norway’s Ingebrigtsen will return to race in Ostrava for the first time since 2020, when he won the 1500m in 3:33.92. Since then, he has become a multiple world record-holder, two-time Olympic champion and two-time World Championships gold medallist.
The distance he will race this time at the Golden Spike is to be confirmed.
Australia’s Gout is set to make his European professional debut when he races the 200m in Ostrava. The 17-year-old clocked 20.04 in December to break the long-standing Oceanian record and also improve Usain Bolt’s world age-16 best.
He more recently ran a wind-assisted 19.84 (2.2m/s) to win the Australian title in Perth. Bolt's Golden Spike record of 19.83 was set in 2008.
They will be joined in Ostrava by Czech athletes including sprinters Karolina Manasova, Lada Vondrova, Tereza Petrzilkova and Milan Scibrani, hurdler Nikoleta Jichova, high jumper Jan Stefela and shot putter Tomas Stanek.
