• World record-holder Yulimar Rojas returns to global indoor stage
• World champion Leyanis Pérez Hernández defends her title
• Olympic champion Thea LaFond seeks another major gold

Few events at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Kujawy Pomorze 26 can boast a line-up quite like the women’s triple jump, where the world record-holder, world champion and Olympic champion will all go head-to-head.

Yulimar Rojas, the most dominant triple jumper of the modern era, returns to the global indoor stage after making her long-awaited comeback last year. The Venezuelan star – a four-time world champion outdoors, three-time world indoor champion and Olympic gold medallist – resumed competition at the 2025 World Championships exactly two years to the day after her previous outing and marked the occasion with a bronze medal.

Her form has continued to build since then. Last month she produced a world-leading leap of 14.95m in Valencia, suggesting the world record-holder could once again contend for the title she last won indoors in 2022. It was on that occasion when she produced an outright world record of 15.74m.

Standing in her way is the athlete who has taken over as the event’s world champion indoors and outdoors. Leyanis Pérez Hernández claimed gold at last year’s World Indoor Championships before going on to win the world title outdoors in Tokyo later that season. The Cuban has developed a reputation for delivering her best performances on the biggest stages, setting indoor personal bests at the past two editions of the World Indoors, leaping 14.90m in Glasgow and 14.93m in Nanjing.

Olympic champion Thea LaFond completes a formidable leading trio. The Dominican jumper made history when winning the 2024 world indoor title with 15.01m, becoming the 10th woman in history – and the most recent – to surpass the 15-metre barrier indoors. She went on to claim Olympic gold later that year and last year took silver at the World Championships.

Between Rojas, Pérez Hernández and LaFond, every global triple jump title – world, Olympic and world indoor – contested since 2017 has been claimed by one of the three. They filled the podium at last year’s World Championships and could do so again in Toruń.

The event has also developed a recent pattern: the winner of each of the past three world indoor titles has gone on to claim a global outdoor crown later that same year. So whoever wins this year’s world indoor crown could become an early favourite for the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in September.

While the spotlight will inevitably fall on the leading trio, several other athletes could challenge for the podium.

Cuba’s Liadagmis Povea finished runner-up at the 2025 World Indoors and placed fourth at both the 2024 Olympic Games and the 2025 World Championships. With personal bests of 14.93m outdoors and 14.81m indoors, she has the ability to compete with the sport’s biggest names, although she is yet to surpass the 14-metre mark so far this season.

USA’s Jasmine Moore owns an indoor PB of 15.12m – placing her fifth on the world indoor all-time list – and will be looking to improve on her fifth-place finish from the 2024 World Indoors. The double Olympic bronze medallist is also entered in the long jump.

Serbia’s Ivana Španović, a two-time world indoor champion in the long jump, has recently shifted her focus towards the triple jump. She set a Serbian indoor record and outright PB of 14.41m earlier this season.

African champion Saly Sarr of Senegal recently matched her outdoor PB of 14.55m indoors – a mark she first achieved when placing sixth at the 2025 World Championships. Remarkably, Sarr had never competed indoors prior to this year; the World Indoors will be only her third indoor competition to date.

Romania’s Elena Andreea Taloș has contested three world indoor finals to date, including fourth place in 2018 and fifth in 2016. She will look to improve on her 10th-place finish from last year.

Jon Mulkeen for World Athletics

If you don’t want to miss this event, you can sync your calendar to receive a notification right before it starts.