Switzerland's Mujinga Kambundji (© Getty Images)
World indoor champion Mujinga Kambundji has been added to the 60m field, while Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk and Patricia Mamona will go head-to-head in the triple jump at the Init Indoor Meeting, the opening 2023 World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold event, in Karlsruhe on 27 January.
Kambundji improved her Swiss record to 6.96 – the fastest time in the world since 1999 – to win a thrilling world indoor 60m final in Belgrade last March and went on to claim European 200m gold and 100m silver in Munich in August.
Now she will race against the already announced Dina Asher-Smith and Ewa Swoboda in Karlsruhe, plus Asha Philip and Daryll Neita. Britain’s 2019 world 200m champion Asher-Smith and Poland’s 2019 European indoor champion Swoboda are both former winners in Karlsruhe, where they will this year also be joined by Malaika Mihambo and Alexandra Burghardt.
Also on the track, multiple world and European medallist Pascal Martinot-Lagarde of France and Spain’s European champion Asier Martinez will race the 60m hurdles.
In the women’s triple jump, two 15-metre-plus athletes will clash. Ukraine’s Bekh-Romanchuk soared 15.02m to win the European title in Munich and also claimed world indoor silver in 2022, while Mamona leapt 15.01m to secure Olympic silver in Tokyo.
In Karlsruhe, they will compete against USA’s world bronze medallist Tori Franklin, Finland’s European silver medallist Kristiina Makela and Cuba’s Olympic fifth-place finisher Liadagmis Povea.
The Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe is the first of seven World Indoor Tour Gold meetings in 2023. In early February the tour heads to Boston, then Torun, New York, Lievin and Madrid before the series final in Birmingham.
The ORLEN Copernicus Cup in Torun takes place on 8 February and in the men’s high jump, New Zealand’s world indoor bronze medallist and Commonwealth champion Hamish Kerr has been announced alongside Germany’s European silver medallist Tobias Potye and Poland’s Norbert Kobielski.
Further information on the Init Indoor Meeting and the ORLEN Copernicus Cup can be found on the event websites.
