Yaroslava Mahuchikh in the high jump at the World Athletics Indoor Tour meeting in Karlsruhe (© Jean-Pierre Durand)
World record-holder Yaroslava Mahuchikh and home star Malaika Mihambo make their World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold season debuts while Eliott Crestan has the chance to build on his recent record-breaking exploits when the INIT Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe returns on Sunday (8).
For many athletes, this season’s World Indoor Tour is an important part of the journey to the World Athletics Indoor Championships Kujawy Pomorze 26 and, beyond that, an outdoor season that includes the World Athletics Ultimate Championship.
Ukraine’s Mahuchikh has already qualified for the Ultimate Championship as the Olympic high jump champion and she will want to maintain momentum following her strong start to the season in Lviv. There, Mahuchikh cleared an early world lead of 2.03m – the 24-year-old’s best clearance since the world record height of 2.10m she achieved in July 2024.
She returns to Karlsruhe for the first time since 2020, when the then 18-year-old Mahuchikh set a world U20 indoor record of 2.02m. Her rivals that day included her compatriot Yuliya Levchenko and the pair meet again on Sunday, Levchenko fresh from a 1.94m clearance to win in Cottbus. They will be joined by German champion Christina Honsel, Sweden’s European indoor bronze medallist Engla Nilsson and Czechia’s Michaela Hruba.
The long jump will feature a clash between Germany’s Olympic and two-time world gold medallist Mihambo and Italy’s Olympic fourth-place finisher Larissa Iapichino.
Mihambo matched her indoor PB and broke a 31-year-old meeting record when she jumped 7.07m to win in Karlsruhe last year and now she defends her title, looking to build on her 6.56m season opener last month in Düsseldorf.
She will face strong competition, as Iapichino has already cleared 6.93m this year in Ancona. Like Mahuchikh, Iapichino is also back in Karlsruhe for the first time since 2020.
“I'm very happy to be back in Karlsruhe, as I gained my first international experience here as a junior athlete,” said Iapichino, who jumped 7.06m outdoors last year. “I hope I can enjoy it even more this time and thrill the audience.”
The field features a third athlete who has surpassed seven metres, Hilary Kpatcha of France, as well as Dutch record-holder Pauline Hondema and Serbia’s Milica Gardašević.
The men’s pole vault pits two-time world medallist Ernest John Obiena against European indoor gold medallists Menno Vloon and Sondre Guttormsen, while 2024 world indoor silver medallist Yasser Triki heads the triple jump field.
Competitive track clashes in store
Belgium’s Crestan headlines the 800m after surging to fourth on the world short track all-time list with a meeting record of 1:43.83 at the World Indoor Tour Gold event in Ostrava on Tuesday.
It was the two-time world indoor medallist’s fifth consecutive sub-1:45 indoor 800m final, on his season opener.
In Karlsruhe he will take on Great Britain’s 2023 world bronze medallist Ben Pattison, who finished third at the Millrose Games – also part of the World Indoor Tour Gold – in New York last weekend, as well as Kenya’s two-time Commonwealth Games champion Wyclife Kinyamal and Sweden’s Andreas Kramer, who claimed 2024 world indoor silver, one place ahead of Crestan.
Olympic bronze medallist Georgia Hunter Bell races for the first time this year in the 1500m and faces her British compatriot Jemma Reekie, the 2024 world indoor 800m silver medallist, plus Ethiopia’s Birke Haylom, who won in Ostrava in a world lead of 4:00.62. Her 18-year-old compatriot Saron Berhe was second in that race in 4:01.23 – a time which improved the official world U20 short track record of 4:01.57, subject to ratification – and they clash again in Karlsruhe.
The men’s 1500m features France’s multiple European indoor medallist Azeddine Habz and Sweden’s defending champion Samuel Pihlström, who topped the overall World Indoor Tour standings last year, against Belgium’s Pieter Sisk, who finished third in the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix 2000m in Boston, plus Italy’s Federico Riva and Germany’s Karl Bebendorf.
Britain’s two-time world indoor medallist Laura Muir makes her season debut in the 3000m, back at the meeting where she set the European indoor record of 8:26.41 in 2017. She goes up against Ethiopia’s two-time world 1500m silver medallist Axumawit Embaye, 2022 world indoor 1500m bronze medallist Hirut Meshesha and 17-year-old Marta Alemayo, who retained her world U20 cross-country title in Tallahassee last month, as well as USA’s Elise Cranny and Canada’s Gabriela DeBues-Stafford.
The men’s race features defending champion Stefan Nillessen, one year on from his Dutch short track record of 7:37.10 in Karlsruhe, against Kenya’s world 10,000m fourth-place finisher Ishmael Kipkurui, who finished fifth at the World Cross Country Championships last month, and two-time world 5000m medallist Jacob Krop.
USA’s world 100m hurdles bronze medallist Grace Stark and Alaysha Johnson are set to go head-to-head in the 60m hurdles, in a field that includes Finland’s Reetta Hurske and Ireland’s Sarah Lavin.
Egypt’s Bassant Hemida and Austria’s Susanne Gogl-Walli, who finished in the top two in the second 400m final in Ostrava, race again over two laps, while the men’s 60m stars USA’s Ronnie Baker, Oman’s Ali Al Balushi, Germany’s Owen Ansah and Cameroon's Emmanuel Eseme.
