60m hurdles winner Szymanski claims Poland's first gold in Kujawy Pomorze

Jakub Szymański had the home crowd on the edge of their seats and, after an incredibly fierce race, won the men’s 60m hurdles at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Kujawy Pomorze 26.

The host nation could not have hoped for a better highlight of the day than the hosts’ first gold medal following a final in which the 23-year-old, with a time of 7.40, finished 0.02 ahead of Spain’s Enrique Llopis and 0.03 ahead of USA’s Trey Cunningham.

In the final, despite the slowest reaction time, Szymański quickly caught up with his competitors and took the lead halfway through the race. And although Llopis managed to catch the Pole briefly in the latter stages, Szymański didn’t let any of his rivals get past him.

“The biggest surprise was the Spaniard finishing ahead of Cunningham,” said the winner. “Now, the weight has fallen off my shoulders.”

It was a long-anticipated redemption for Szymański, who last year, in Nanjing, as a European indoor champion, stumbled in the semifinals and didn’t make the final. After missing the medal race, the 23-year-old was determined to fight for the medal on his home soil.

“I was heartbroken to miss out on the final in Nanjing,” he said. “I thought of avenging that loss every day and night, now I have done it. I worked hard with myself to get over what happened then. Records can be beaten at any time, but winning gold is just extra special.”

Although Szymański did not break his own Polish record (7.37), set just before coming to Toruń at the ISTAF Indoor meeting, he has still gone down in the history of Polish athletics as the first hurdler to win a world indoor title.

The hurdler, who is based in Sopot, which hosted the previous Polish edition of the World Indoors, is just the fourth individual Polish athlete to win a world indoor title after Sebastian Chmara (heptathlon, 1992), Kamila Lićwinko (high jump, 2014), and Adam Kszczot (800m, 2018).

Like Szymański, Llopis had previously won senior medals only at the continental level. For the 25-year-old, the silver in Toruń is also the greatest achievement of his career to date.

“Winning a medal puts me on cloud nine, especially given the high level of competition in this final,” he said. “The dream was to win a medal; gold almost felt out of this world, but I performed very well.”

The men’s 60m hurdles has traditionally been dominated by US athletes at the World Indoors, having won 13 of the past 21 editions.

In the absence of Grant Holloway, the three-time world indoor and outdoor champion, it was his compatriot, Trey Cunningham, who had hoped to bring another gold medal back to the US. In the end, though, he had to settle for bronze.

“I am disappointed because my body failed me. I was cramping the whole time,” he said. “Looking on the bright side, it's pretty impressive I could do that – both of my calves were cramping the whole race.”

In fourth, Jamaica’s Demario Prince clocked a PB of 7.43 – the fastest clocking for fourth place in any 60m hurdles race in history. There were also best marks-for-place in fifth (Wilhem Belocian, 7.45), sixth (Shusei Nomoto’s Japanese record of 7.49), seventh (Franco Le Roux, 7.51) and eighth (Lorenzo Simonelli, 7.52).

Piotrek Przyborowski for World Athletics

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