Brazil's Thiago Braz (© AFP / Getty Images)
Thiago Braz will compete against KC Lightfoot and Raphael Holzdeppe in Karlsruhe, and Ernest John Obiena and Piotr Lisek in Torun, when the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meetings host two pole vault clashes on 27 January and 8 February, respectively.
Braz, the Olympic champion in Rio in 2016, claimed another Olympic medal with bronze in Tokyo. He followed that with another major medal at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22, securing silver with a South American indoor record of 5.95m in a competition won by Sweden's Mondo Duplantis with a world record vault.
The Brazilian, who set his PB of 6.03m in Rio, went on to finish fourth at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon, one place behind Philippines’ Obiena, who added a centimetre to his own Asian record with 5.94m to win bronze – the first ever World Championships medal for his nation.
That duo will compete against each other again at the ORLEN Copernicus Cup in Torun on 8 February, when five-time world medallist Lisek will line up alongside them in front of a home crowd.
Before that, Braz will go up against last year’s runner-up Lightfoot and the 2013 world gold medallist Holzdeppe at the Init Indoor Meeting in Karlsruhe.
USA’s Lightfoot, who joined the 6.00m club in Lubbock last year, cleared 5.89m at the last edition of the Init Indoor Meeting, finishing second in a competition won by Duplantis with a meeting record of 6.02m.
The 2018 winner Holzdeppe also returns to compete in front of home fans at the Messehalle, where the trio will be joined by the already-announced Bo Kanda Lita Baehre and Oleg Zernikel.
The Init Indoor Meeting is the first of the seven World Indoor Tour Gold meetings in 2023, while the ORLEN Copernicus Cup is the third event on this year’s calendar.
Dina Asher-Smith and Ewa Swoboda are among the athletes already announced for Karlsruhe, while Miltiadis Tentoglou, Britany Anderson, Keely Hodgkinson and Mary Moraa are among the entries for Torun.
Further information on the Init Indoor Meeting and the ORLEN Copernicus Cup can be found on the event websites.
