Poland's Ewa Swoboda (© Getty Images)
Ewa Swoboda has stormed into the 60m spotlight in 2022, taking her PB down to a world-leading 6.99 during an unbeaten season she aims to cap with victory at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22.
The Polish 24-year-old is among three athletes on the entry list to have run 7.05 or faster this year and with another two having dipped under 7.10, all signs point to a thrilling clash for the medals.
Swoboda looks a powerful force, however. European indoor champion in 2019, she now leads the world and has the four fastest times so far this year to her name. Her 6.99 moved her into the top 10 on the world all-time list, it being the first sub-seven-second women’s 60m since the 6.97 that Murielle Ahoure ran to win the world indoor title in Birmingham in 2018.
Four years on from that competition in Birmingham, where Swoboda reached the semifinals, she had a record-breaking start to her season. Improving her own Polish record at the Orlen Cup in Lodz on 11 February, she ran 7.00 in what was her first competition in almost eight months following injury. She went on to narrowly beat Jamaica’s five-time Olympic gold medallist Elaine Thompson-Herah at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Torun, 7.03 to 7.04, and returning to Torun 11 days later she broke seven seconds for the first time to win the Polish title.
While Thompson-Herah won’t be racing in Belgrade, the entry list does feature another of this season’s 7.04 sprinters in USA’s Marybeth Sant-Price. Told by a doctor to consider retirement after suffering a series of injuries, the 26-year-old did step away from the sport but made a comeback and this season has improved her PB from 7.18 to the 7.04 she ran to win in Fayetteville last month.
Two weeks later she lined up at the US Indoor Championships and finished second to Mikiah Brisco to gain her first major championships place.
Before her US title win, 2017 NCAA 100m champion Brisco also triumphed at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in 7.07 and was second at the Millrose Games. She is edging closer to the 7.04 PB she set in 2020 and will also be well in the mix in Belgrade.
As will Switzerland’s Mujinga Kambundji, the 2018 world indoor bronze medallist who claimed a 200m medal of the same colour at the 2019 World Championships in Doha. Her PB stands at 7.03, run in 2018, and this year she is just 0.02 off that.
Jamaican sprinters have won three of the past five women’s world indoor 60m finals, while Thompson-Herah claimed bronze in 2016, and Briana Williams and Shericka Jackson will be looking to challenge to add to that medal tally.
Williams, who won world U18 100m and 200m titles in 2018, is still aged just 19 but improved her 60m PB to 7.09 in the heats at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix and then finished second in the final.
Jackson, meanwhile, might be a multiple world and Olympic 400m medallist but her impressive range means she also has a 60m best of 7.12 to her name.
The list of medal contenders also includes Britain’s Daryll Neita, who improved her PB to 7.11 when finishing second behind Thompson-Herah at the World Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Birmingham.
Swoboda’s teammate Pia Skrzyszowska, a hurdles specialist, has also improved to 7.12 this season, while Switzerland’s Geraldine Frey and Spain’s Maria Isabel Perez are others in PB form.
Jess Whittington for World Athletics
