Ewa Swoboda and Dina Asher-Smith in action over 60m (© Getty Images)
Almost three years since her last 60m race, world 200m champion Dina Asher-Smith will line up for the short sprint at the Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe, the first World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting of 2021, on 29 January.
The 25-year-old has raced in Karlsruhe on three previous occasions, winning in 2015, placing third in 2016 and finishing second in 2017. She set her lifetime best of 7.08 when finishing second at the 2015 European Indoor Championships in Prague, and she matched that time in Glasgow in 2018 in what was her most recent indoor appearance.
Later that year she went on to win gold medals in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m at the European Championships in Berlin. Along with her 200m gold medal in Doha, she also earned silver medals in the 100m and 4x100m.
Asher-Smith’s opponents in Karlsruhe will include European indoor champion Ewa Swoboda of Poland, Ajla del Ponte of Switzerland and Tatjana Pinto of Germany.
Swoboda won in Karlsruhe in 2019 en route to taking the overall 60m title in that year’s World Athletics Indoor Tour. She set her lifetime best of 7.07 as a teenager in 2016, breaking the world U20 record in the process. Her 7.08 clocking in Karlsruhe in 2019 was just 0.04 shy of the meeting record.
Del Ponte opened her 2020 campaign with a second-place finish in Karlsruhe and went on to enjoy a breakthrough season outdoors, winning at the Diamond League meetings in Monaco and Stockholm.
Pinto won in Karlsruhe in 2018 with 7.10. Two weeks later, she clocked a lifetime best of 7.06, which makes her the fastest woman in the field for this year’s race.
World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold
29 Jan – Karlsruhe, Germany
9 Feb – Lievin, France
13 Feb – Boston, USA
17 Feb – Torun, Poland
24 Feb – Madrid, Spain
