• Woo Sanghyeok aims for third world indoor title
• European indoor champion Oleh Doroshchuk targets another major indoor crown
• Jan Štefela hopes to beat his coach's record

Defending champion Woo Sanghyeok is gearing up to win a potential third high jump title at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Kujawy Pomorze 26. But he is one of seven men in the field to have jumped 2.30m this year, suggesting it could be a competitive battle for gold.

The experienced Korean enjoyed a successful 2025. After winning world indoor gold in Nanjing, the 29-year-old also won the Asian title and earned silver at the World Championships in Tokyo.

In the absence of world and Olympic champion Hamish Kerr, Woo’s task in Toruń has been made slightly easier. But he’ll still have to beat the likes of Jan Štefela.

The Czech jumper, who took world bronze in Tokyo last year behind Kerr and Woo, cleared a world-leading 2.32m in Banská Bystrica at the end of February.

He is now aiming to become the first Czech high jumper to win a world indoor crown. To date, his country’s best result in this discipline is bronze, earned in 2004 by Štefela’s coach, Jaroslav Baba.

Poland’s Mateusz Kołodziejski, who set a PB of 2.30m in Hustopeče in February, hopes to produce his best form in front of his home crowd and become just the second Polish man to make a world indoor high jump podium.

“I’m trying not to think about what’s at stake in Toruń,” he said. “There’s no point in putting pressure on myself. I’m trying to adopt the right mind-set so that in the competition I can simply repeat what I did in Hustopeče.”

This time last year, Oleh Doroshchuk achieved the biggest victory of his career to date, winning gold at the European Indoor Championships with a lifetime best of 2.34m. The Ukrainian has finished in the top six at the last four global championships he has contested, including a fourth-place finish at the World Championships last year, so he’ll be keen to make his first global podium.

Other contenders include Jamaica’s four-time NCAA champion Romaine Beckford, Japan’s 2025 world indoor finalist Naoto Hasegawa and his compatriot Tomohiro Shinno, the Asian silver medallist.

Piotrek Przyborowski for World Athletics

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