Mariya Lasitskene in action at the Muller Indoor Grand Prix (© Getty Images)
World and Olympic high jump champion Mariya Lasitskene will return to the city where she won her second world indoor title when she competes at the Müller Indoor Grand Prix Birmingham – a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting – on 19 February.
The 29-year-old has dominated the high jump in recent years and was unbeaten indoors in 2021. She went on to win her first Olympic title in Tokyo later in the year.
“I have two global titles to defend in 2022 and this competition is great preparation for the first of those, the World Indoor Championships,” said the three-time world champion, who has PBs of 2.06m outdoors and 2.05m indoors. “I won the 2018 world indoor title at this venue and the noise from the crowd was incredible. We’ve had to compete in silence at many events over the past two years and I’m looking forward to returning to a packed arena in Birmingham.”
Lasitskene will take on current world leader Emily Borthwick, who is unbeaten this year following victories in Karlsruhe (1.91m), Hustopece (1.95m) and Mondeville (1.92m).
Meanwhile, organisers of the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais have announced a strong men’s pole vault field for the World Indoor Tour Gold fixture in Lievin on 17 February.
USA’s Olympic silver medallist Chris Nilsen, who last weekend equalled the North American indoor record of 6.02m, will take on 2016 Olympic champion Thiago Braz, multiple world medallist Piotr Lisek of Poland, as well as Emmanouil Karalis of Greece, European silver medallist Timor Morgunov, Dutch record-holder Menno Vloon, and European indoor silver medallist Valentin Lavillenie.
The Müller Indoor Grand Prix are the fourth and fifth World Indoor Tour Gold meeting of 2022. There are seven Gold level meetings across the series which started with Karlsruhe on 28 January and concludes in Madrid on 2 March.
Throughout the series, each athlete’s best three results will count towards their overall point score. The athlete with the most points in each scoring discipline at the end of the tour will be declared the winner and will be awarded a USD$10,000 bonus along with a wild card entry for the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22.
