<p>When she casts her mind back to the evening of 10 February 2008, Susanna Kallur is not entirely satisfied with her 60m hurdles performance at the BW-Bank Meeting in Karlsruhe. &ldquo;I still think my start could have been a little bit better,&rdquo; she concedes.</p>
<p>At the time, 15 years ago now, the Swede was at the top of her high hurdles game. &ldquo;I felt unstoppable,&rdquo; Kallur reflects. &ldquo;The feeling then was just magic. It felt like my body just ran by itself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>That night in south-west Germany, despite her less than fully perfect start, Kallur flew over the five barriers in her path to a world indoor record for the 60m hurdles: 7.68.</p>
<p>The previous mark, 7.69, had stood since 1990 to Lyudmila Narozhilenko, as the Soviet-born hurdler was known before she transferred allegiance to Sweden (as Lyudmila Engquist) and her career became tarnished with a drugs ban.</p>
<p>As Ed Gordon noted in his meeting report for the World Athletics website: &ldquo;Of the recognised international championship discipline track event records, only the women&rsquo;s 400m world indoor record of Jarmila Kratochvilova from 1982 is older.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Kratochvilova&rsquo;s 49.59 remains intact, 41 years after it was set in Athens. Kallur&rsquo;s figures have survived for a decade and a half now. Only Sharika Nelvis and Kendra Harrison have come close, the US duo both clocking 7.70 in 2018.</p>
<div><img style="max-width: 900px; width: 100%; display: block;" src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/fa3ccdd3-ec28-4666-945a-f1274742a8f9.jpg" alt="Susanna Kallur and Josphine Onyia in action in the heat of the women's 100m hurdles" />
<p style="font-size: 0.9em; color: #b2b2b2; text-align: right; margin: -15px 0 0px;">Susanna Kallur in action in the heats of the women's 100m hurdles at the 2008 Olympics (&copy; Getty Images)</p>
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<p>At the time, in Karlsruhe in 2006, the US-born Kallur was happy with her performance. Her start was better than the sluggish one that cost her the record in Stuttgart eight days previously, when she finished fast in 7.72. She led at the first flight and, as Gordon reported: &ldquo;Her computer-perfect form clicked off the remaining four hurdles faster than anyone has before.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Lolo Jones, the latest talent to emerge from the deep well of world-class US women&rsquo;s high hurdlers, finished second in 7.77. That moved the native Iowan to second on the US all-time list, behind Gail Devers&rsquo; 7.74.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is absolutely unbelievable,&rdquo; Kallur told the trackside interviewer in the Europahalle Arena. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t put my feelings into words. In comparison with my start last week in Stuttgart, today was much better.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It may not have been perfect tonight but no-one in history has run faster.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In the immediate aftermath, it was suggested to Kallur that she should consider herself favourite for the 100m hurdles at that year&rsquo;s Olympic Games in Beijing. Despite her inner feeling of invincibility, the Swede remained grounded in public.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just focusing on the 60m hurdles right now,&rdquo; she insisted. &ldquo;I entered the season with a goal of running a PB and winning the world indoor title in Valencia. I&rsquo;m not looking beyond that.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Six days shy of her 26th birthday, the younger of the Kallur twins was at the peak of her track powers.</p>
<div><img style="max-width: 900px; width: 100%; display: block;" src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/63e6436cf9281235917f70a1.jpg" alt="Susanna Kallur competes at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia" />
<p style="font-size: 0.9em; color: #b2b2b2; text-align: right; margin: -15px 0 0px;">Susanna Kallur competes at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia (&copy; Getty Images)</p>
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<h2>Chilean gold</h2>
<p>Susanna was born four minutes after her sister Jenny on 16 February 1981 at Huntington on Long Island, New York State - also the birthplace of such luminaries as piano man Billy Joel, poet Walt Whitman, writer Jack Kerouac, aviator Charles Lindbergh, Seinfeld star Jason Alexander and Edie Falco of The Sopranos.</p>
<p>The Kallurs were born New Yorkers because their father, Anders, played for the New York Islanders ice hockey club from 1979 to 1985. A Swedish legend in the sport, he won four Stanley Cups with the Islanders.</p>
<p>The Kallurs moved back to Sweden in 1986 and Susanna&nbsp;and Jenny started their sporting careers as gymnasts, making the national junior squad, before switching to track and field.</p>
<p>Members of the Falu IK club in Falun, 140 miles north-west of Stockholm, they were both selected for the 100m hurdles at the World U20 Championships in Santiago in 2000. Susanna was a class apart in the final, winning by 0.19 in 13.02. Jenny finished sixth in 13.30.</p>
<div><img style="max-width: 900px; width: 100%; display: block;" src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/63e641c0f9281235917f7098.jpg" alt="The 2000 world U20 100m hurdles winner Susanna Kallur (533) celebrates with her twin sister Jenny in Santiago" />
<p style="font-size: 0.9em; color: #b2b2b2; text-align: right; margin: -15px 0 0px;">The 2000 world U20 100m hurdles winner Susanna Kallur (533) celebrates with her twin sister Jenny in Santiago (&copy; Getty Images)</p>
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<p>Unlike fellow Swedish golden girl Carolina Kluft, winner of the heptathlon title in the Chilean capital, it took Susanna time to make her mark as a senior athlete.</p>
<p>Kluft graduated to world senior champion in Paris in 2003 and was one of three Swedish gold medal winners at the Olympic Games in Athens a year later, together with high jumper Stefan Holm and triple jumper Christian Olsson.</p>
<p>Susanna failed to make it beyond the semifinals in Paris or Athens but claimed her first senior international medal at the 2005 European Indoor Championships in Madrid: gold in the 60m hurdles, with Jenny taking silver in her slipstream.</p>
<h2>Beating the &lsquo;Tre Kronor&rsquo;</h2>
<p>Then came world indoor bronze in Moscow in early 2006, followed by European outdoor gold on home ground at the Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg.</p>
<div><img style="max-width: 900px; width: 100%; display: block;" src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/63e6427af9281235917f709b.jpg" alt="Susanna Kallur celebrates her European 100m hurdles win in Gothenburg in 2006" />
<p style="font-size: 0.9em; color: #b2b2b2; text-align: right; margin: -15px 0 0px;">Susanna Kallur celebrates her European 100m hurdles win in Gothenburg in 2006 (&copy; Getty Images)</p>
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<p>In January 2007, 'Sanna' &ndash; as she was known to the adoring public in her homeland &ndash; was named Swedish sports personality of 2006, trumping Kluft and the Swedish men&rsquo;s ice hockey team, whose unprecedented Olympic and World Championship successes sparked national parades. She was presented with the coveted Jerringspriset trophy by King Carl VXI Gustav.</p>
<p>"I never thought I would beat the Tre Kronor," Susanna said, referring to the nickname of the national ice hockey team, &lsquo;the three crowns.&rsquo; "It beats everything: to take the prize that the Swedish people have voted for. Last year was a dream for me, winning a gold medal in my own country, but I have to take things forward now.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Two months later, Queen Sanna retained her European indoor crown in Birmingham.</p>
<h2>The seemingly unstoppable is stopped</h2>
<p>During the 2007 outdoor season she reduced her lifetime 100m hurdles best to 12.49 but suffered heartache at the World Athletics Championships in Osaka, finishing fourth in the final &ndash; missing a medal by 0.01 &ndash; after leading until the eighth hurdle.</p>
<p>Eventual winner Michelle Perry of the US drifted into Kallur&rsquo;s lane but the Swedish management chose not to appeal as there was no photographic evidence available within the allowable protest period.</p>
<p>Then came the 2008 indoor season and the run of form that took her to national records of 7.80, 7.75 and 7.72 before the 6.68 world indoor record in Karlsruhe. World indoor gold in Valencia beckoned &ndash; and the real possibility of Olympic gold in Beijing five months beyond.</p>
<p>Sadly, the seemingly unstoppable force was confronted by the immovable hand of fate. Kallur was the fastest heat winner in Valencia but suffered a hamstring injury warming up for her semifinal. Jones won the final in 7.80.</p>
<p>The world indoor record-holder made it back for the Olympics but crashed out at the first hurdle in her semifinal. Due to a succession of injuries, and the birth of her daughter Majken in 2013, she was absent from the international scene for eight years.</p>
<div><img style="max-width: 900px; width: 100%; display: block;" src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/63e642e3f9281235917f709e.jpg" alt="Susanna Kallur competes at the 2016 Olympics in Rio" />
<p style="font-size: 0.9em; color: #b2b2b2; text-align: right; margin: -15px 0 0px;">Susanna Kallur competes at the 2016 Olympics in Rio (&copy; Getty Images)</p>
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<p>In the 2016 outdoor season, Kallur made the semifinals at the European Championships in Amsterdam and ran in the heats at the Olympic Games in Rio, but she bowed out gracefully in March the following year - after finishing eighth in the 60m hurdles final at the European Indoor Championships in Belgrade.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t train for the hurdles properly now,&rdquo; Kallur lamented. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not able to perform as well as I want to.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve kept going all of these years because the injuries came right after my world indoor record. At that time, I felt like I was just starting out at that level. I wanted to have a few more seasons, to compete for Olympic and World Championships medals.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I felt like I was unstoppable in 2008. Now, I can see that I was stoppable.&rdquo;</p>
<p><strong>Simon Turnbull for World Athletics Heritage</strong></p>

Susanna Kallur reflects on her 60m hurdles performance from 2008

Sanna's world record lives on after 15 years

<p>World indoor champion Grant Holloway has been confirmed for the 60m hurdles at the <strong>Birmingham World Indoor Tour Final</strong> on 25 February.</p>
<p>The 2022 indoor season was another huge success for US star Holloway as he equalled his own world indoor record of 7.29, a mark he first achieved when improving Colin Jackson&rsquo;s long-standing world record at the World Indoor Tour meeting in Madrid in 2021.</p>
<p>Holloway clocked 7.29 for the second time during the semifinals of the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22 and he went on to win the world title, adding that global gold medal to his two world 110m hurdles titles and Olympic silver medal.</p>
<p>In a clash of world indoor gold medallists, Holloway will face 2018 60m hurdles champion Andrew Pozzi in Birmingham. The British athlete finished second to Holloway at last year&rsquo;s World Indoor Tour event and he has strong history at the venue as it is where he sealed his world title win five years ago.</p>
<p>&ldquo;My 2022 season was one to remember and the 60m hurdles world record was a very special achievement for me,&rdquo; said Holloway.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I really enjoyed competing in Birmingham last year, and it was amazing to win in front of such a loud and respectful crowd. I am really looking forward to competing in that atmosphere in February at the Birmingham World Indoor Tour Final. The hurdles is always a must-watch race, so this one will not disappoint and we look forward to putting on a show.&rdquo;</p>
<p>For further information on the Birmingham World Indoor Tour Final, visit the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.britishathletics.org.uk/news-and-features/world-champion-grant-holloway-to-take-on-60m-hurdles-at-birmingham-world-indoor-tour-final/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">event website</a></strong></span>.</p>
<p><strong>Organisers for World Athletics</strong></p>

World indoor gold medallists Grant Holloway and Andrew Pozzi will race on 25 February

Holloway heads clash of world indoor hurdles champions in Birmingham

<p>For Jarret Eaton, winning a medal at the <strong>World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22</strong> was &ldquo;the icing on the cake&rdquo; at a key point in his career.</p>
<p>After eight years as a professional hurdler, Eaton had been ready to run his final season in 2020 but the pandemic put paid to that plan. Instead, the 32-year-old went back into training and refocused. Two years later, his patience was rewarded.</p>
<p>Already a world indoor silver medallist from four years prior, he doubled that medal tally with 60m hurdles bronze in Belgrade&rsquo;s Stark Arena. Clocking 7.53, he finished third behind his US teammate Grant Holloway, who had equalled his own world record of 7.29 in the semifinals and then ran 7.39 in the final, and French multiple medallist Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, who ran 7.50.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It has been a wild, tremendous season for me,&rdquo; says Eaton, reflecting on a busy couple of months that featured 15 top-three finishes from the 16 races he contested, including heats and finals.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Being able to come out and compete overseas in Europe, I think that helped tremendously. I was able to go to USAs (US Indoor Championships) and compete with Grant, and I think everybody is looking at Grant &ndash; he is the world record-holder for a reason, and it was really exciting to be in a race like that with him. He is something special. For me to even just have the opportunity to be there and then to get a medal alongside him is a highlight for me in my career. I&rsquo;m truly thankful that everything aligned and all the hard work cumulated to this moment, to get a medal for my country and to be in some of these historic races.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I was planning to run my last indoor season in 2020,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;That didn&rsquo;t happen, so we postponed things and I said that this was going to be my last year. So, I put all my focus and energy into this indoor season and I was able to come out with a medal and I am truly happy. I think that is the icing on the cake. It&rsquo;s just a beautiful way to put a close to this chapter of my life.&rdquo;<br /><br /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/6242e28a0b3b83999c6e868f.jpg" alt="" width="100%" /><em>Jarret Eaton dips for 60m hurdles bronze at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22 (&copy; Getty Images)</em></p>
<p><br />Eaton has overcome many barriers throughout his career, both literally and figuratively, and it is this adversity that provides the foundation for his next chapter. While still undecided on whether he will target a full outdoor season, his focus now &ndash; as it has also been during his own competitive career &ndash; is helping the next generation. Unsponsored, Eaton was working as a substitute teacher when he secured world indoor silver in Birmingham in 2018 and he is now a coach based in Phoenix, Arizona. His decade of elite experience and his journey in the sport has left him well equipped to help the sport&rsquo;s future stars.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have gone my whole career without a sponsorship,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I have been blessed to know people and to be able to market myself in a certain way and I have found that there is a gap between what I expect and what actually <em>is</em>. So, I want to be able to fill that void and essentially try to become a media and marketing manager for a lot of these athletes, to bring in more income and help them profit off their name, in a sense. We&rsquo;re missing exposure.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have been a substitute teacher, I&rsquo;ve worked in retail, I was on government assistance, and these are things that I don&rsquo;t want other athletes to do if they are trying to pursue an athletic career. I&rsquo;ve been able to be really smart with my money. I&rsquo;m terribly diligent, so I think that has also helped tremendously.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I wanted to still be connected in the sport in some way, so I&rsquo;ve got some side projects I want to continue as I transition out of the competition side.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Eaton&rsquo;s transition into the sport came when he was at school, where he took part in athletics and American football. In eighth grade he tried the hurdles because everyone else seemed scared of the event, but he wasn&rsquo;t.</p>
<p>By the time he moved to Syracuse University, Eaton&rsquo;s full focus was on athletics and he became the university&rsquo;s first individual NCAA champion in track and field, winning the 60m hurdles title in 2012, before moving on to South Carolina &ndash; first to Clemson and then Columbia.</p>
<p>After some challenging times, it was making the 2016 World Indoor Championships team that kept him in the sport.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I thought I was going to quit track, my roommate Spencer Adams did too, and for us to come from the same track club, the Basics Track Club in South Carolina, to beat out tough Americans and make the team was one of the highest moments in my career. I still think back to that day, it was true excitement,&rdquo; recalls Eaton, who won his first US title that season.<br /><br /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/6242e2655632a2fa6f0d9b38.jpg" alt="" width="100%" /><em>Jarret Eaton at the 2016 World Indoor Championships in Portland and with winner Andrew Pozzi at the 2018&nbsp;World Indoor Championships in Birmingham (&copy; Getty Images)</em><em style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;"><br /><img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/6242e2495632a2fa6f0d9b35.jpg" alt="" width="100%" /><br /></em></p>
<p><br />He finished fourth in that world final on home soil in Portland, with Adams fifth. For Eaton, it would prove to be just the start. He clocked his 110m hurdles PB of 13.25 later that summer, while his 60m hurdles best of 7.43 was run two years later, when he gained the second of his US titles to secure his spot on the team for the 2018 World Indoor Championships.</p>
<p>Not only did Eaton compete and win at those national championships in Albuquerque, he also led "An Extra Pair Campaign", a community project that encouraged athletes competing at the championships to bring an extra pair of running shoes or track spikes to donate to athletes of Rio Grande High School.<br /><br /></p>
<blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/BfhAaLdnPVc/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14">
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<p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BfhAaLdnPVc/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Jarret Eaton (@jeaton22)</a></p>
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<p><br />&ldquo;Winning my world silver indoor medal, that was really special to me,&rdquo; reflects Eaton, who was just 0.01 off gold in Birmingham. &ldquo;It was my first world indoor medal, and to have it be such a close race, I couldn&rsquo;t ask for more. I was just out there trying to fight for my name and get a medal, and I did. So that was mission accomplished, I felt good about myself like &lsquo;you&rsquo;re on the right track, you can do this, you belong here&rsquo;.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Now based in Arizona at the Phoenix Track Club, he is guided by coach Tim O&rsquo;Neil and it was his fellow Syracuse alum Freddie Crittenden who convinced him to join the group.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It was one of the best decisions I made in my career,&rdquo; he says.</p>
<p>On his next decision &ndash; when he might hang up his racing spikes &ndash; Eaton adds: &ldquo;I think this (year) is the right time. I wanted to be able to go out on my terms. Not all athletes get the chance to do that, they kind of get thrown out of the sport, and I didn&rsquo;t want that to happen to me. I wanted to go out on a high note, on a joyous moment, and I&rsquo;m so glad that the World Indoors came to a close like this. Honestly, I couldn&rsquo;t ask for anything more.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll see about outdoors. We&rsquo;ll take it one step at a time.&rdquo;<br /><br /></p>
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<p><br />There is also the lure of a home World Athletics Championships in Oregon in July, which Eaton will embrace either as an athlete or fan.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m so excited for the Americans to host something so big,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We did the World Indoors and I think once you guys see that field in Eugene, it&rsquo;s truly amazing, it will blow your socks off.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure there&rsquo;s going to be a lot of performances that are record-breaking, world-leading and beyond. It&rsquo;s good to have the world looking at Eugene.&rdquo;</p>
<p>And if all goes to plan, the eyes of future generations will also be on Eaton, as he fulfils a new role in the sport.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I just hope to be, if not an inspiration, then an aid for other people,&rdquo; he adds.</p>
<p><strong>Jess Whittington for World Athletics</strong></p>

World Athletics Indoor Championships

For Jarret Eaton, winning a medal at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22 was “the icing on the cake” at a key point in his career.

His own hurdles cleared, Eaton is ready for the next chapter

<p>Imagine working for years towards a specific goal &ndash; that of competing at an Olympic Games &ndash; only to have it snatched away moments before it happens.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Cyrena Samba-Mayela knows how that feels.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The French sprint hurdler was warming up for her opening race at the Tokyo Olympics last year when she injured her hamstring, an old problem resurfacing at the worst time, forcing her to leave an absent lane on the track and a huge void in her heart.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It was hard, really hard,&rdquo; she says now. &ldquo;Hard to the point where I had it in my heart for more than one month. I didn&rsquo;t want to go to holidays or enjoy anything. It was like a dream torn away.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She was just 20 at the time, young enough to come again, and Samba-Mayela was adamant that she would, committing herself to strengthening her body better than ever in the off-season.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The point was not to go back to this (situation),&rdquo; she says.&nbsp;</p>
<p>So far, so good.&nbsp;</p>
<p>At the&nbsp;<strong>World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22</strong>, Samba-Mayela had the kind of magical day that put her Olympic experience firmly behind her, winning her 60m hurdles heat in 7.91 in the morning, her semifinal in 7.85 that evening, then winning gold in the final in 7.78, a French record.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m in a dream,&rdquo; she said after the race, and this time it was one that couldn&rsquo;t be torn away.&nbsp;<br /><br /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/6241987f614d351fbaeae33f.jpg" alt="" width="100%" /><em>Cyrena Samba-Mayela wins the world indoor 60m hurdles title&nbsp;(&copy; Getty Images)<br /><img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/6241985a216c52da8bb8a2f5.jpg" alt="" width="100%" /></em></p>
<p><br />One of the first calls she made that night was to her family, who were watching back home in&nbsp;Champigny-sur-Marne, a suburb of&nbsp;Paris. &ldquo;They cried,&rdquo; says Samba-Mayela. &ldquo;They remembered all the bad things I went through, and they were really proud of me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Her parents, who are of Congolese origin, are both former athletes and they encouraged Samba-Mayela &ndash; who was born and raised in France &ndash; to take up athletics when she was 15.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Before that she&rsquo;d done judo, basketball, gymnastics and ice skating, sports that she believes stood to her when she turned to hurdles, having started out as a sprinter.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Her first coach at Athletic Club Paris Joinville was&nbsp;Albertine Koutouan, an Ivorian who&rsquo;d been African champion in the heptathlon in 1990 and who first encouraged&nbsp;Samba-Mayela to try the hurdles, figuring it&rsquo;d be a good fit.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I fell in love directly,&rdquo; she says of the event.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Samba-Mayela showed immediate promise, clocking 8.37 for the 60m hurdles (76.2cm) at the age of 15 and 13.32 for 100m hurdles over the same barriers.&nbsp;</p>
<p>After another year of training, she went to the World U18 Championships in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2017 and showed her world-class credentials, clocking a wind-assisted 12.80 over the 76.2cm barriers to win silver behind Jamaica&rsquo;s Britany Anderson, with Yoveiny Mota of Venezuela just behind them in fourth.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Fast forward four and a half years, and Samba-Mayela, Anderson and Mota were back in another global final &ndash; this time at senior level in Belgrade.&nbsp;<br /><br /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/623646abac5a406184ec34de.jpg" alt="" width="100%" /><em>Samba-Mayela's fellow 2017 world U18 finalists Britany Anderson and Yoveiny Mota also featured in the world indoor final in Belgrade (&copy; Getty Images)</em></p>
<p><br />For Samba-Mayela, a lot had changed in the years since. These days she&rsquo;s no longer at school but at university, studying architecture and interior design remotely while training at INSEP, the French Institute of Sport, Exercise and Performance.&nbsp;</p>
<p>For the past two years, her career has been guided by Teddy Tamgho, the 2013 world champion in the triple jump who&rsquo;s one of only six men in history to surpass the 18-metre barrier.&nbsp;</p>
<p>How is Tamgho as a coach?</p>
<p>&ldquo;A perfectionist,&rdquo; says Samba-Mayela. &ldquo;But he knows what he&rsquo;s doing. He&rsquo;s a visionary, and that&rsquo;s the most important thing. He&rsquo;s a great coach, a really great coach.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Working alongside her under Tamgho is Burkina Faso&rsquo;s Marthe Yasmine Koala, a 12.81-second hurdler last year, and Samba-Mayela says the norm for them is about four hours of training each day.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But it&rsquo;s one thing being physically ready. Since Tokyo, Samba-Mayela has put more work than ever into being psychologically primed for the big stage.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I changed so much, learned how to master the mental side,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re not good in your mind, it&rsquo;s not going to work.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She has proven in the past that she can perform when it counts, winning silver at the European U23 Championships last year in 12.80, a few weeks before that hamstring issue arose in Tokyo. Having rehabbed and recovered from that, Samba-Mayela came back stronger than ever in 2022, finishing second at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Karlsruhe in a PB of 7.84 before winning the French indoor title in 7.92.&nbsp;<br /><br /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/62419842216c52da8bb8a2f2.jpg" alt="" width="100%" /><em>Cyrena Samba-Mayela at the European U23 Championships (&copy; Getty Images)</em></p>
<p><br />Those performances marked her out as a big contender in Belgrade, but rather than worry about her rivals or get stressed about the fine margins separating success from failure, Samba-Mayela took a different attitude into the championships.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The day I ran, it was about enjoying the moment so I could run to my full potential,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Honestly, I was not nervous (before the final) because I was so enjoying the moment.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She might have been denied a chance to compete in Tokyo, but what she did pick up was valuable experience, &ldquo;being around champions&rdquo; and seeing how they operate on the biggest stage. &ldquo;So I&rsquo;m thankful for that,&rdquo; she says.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In the 60m hurdles final in Belgrade, Samba-Mayela got a flying start and midway through the race, it was her against Devynne Charlton of The Bahamas and USA&rsquo;s Gabby Cunningham in the race for gold.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The 21-year-old French star proved just too quick, her hurdling too crisp, for the others to match, and Samba-Mayela took victory in 7.78, with Charlton second in 7.81 and Cunningham third in 7.87.&nbsp;</p>
<p>As it was after the heat and semifinal, Samba-Mayela did not sprint up the bend and into the crash pads, but slowed to an abrupt stop just short of them, collapsing to her knees. She cried a river of joyful tears, her exulted screams ringing out around the arena.&nbsp;<br /><br /></p>
<p><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/knhOokfHv7g" width="100%" height="475" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><br />&ldquo;I'm thankful to all people, and especially to my coach, who never stopped believing in me,&rdquo; she said a while later.&nbsp;</p>
<p>As she turns her focus to the outdoor season, Samba-Mayela knows her indoor campaign was the perfect platform to help her edge closer to the world&rsquo;s best in the 100m hurdles.&nbsp;</p>
<p>With the&nbsp;World Athletics Championships Eugene22&nbsp;in July and the European Championships in Munich in August, there&rsquo;ll be ample opportunity to chase more medals. Her hope for the summer?</p>
<p>&ldquo;I wish I can be as good at this,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give my best again.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Then there&rsquo;s the whole matter of Paris 2024, when Samba-Mayela will be 23.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The biggest show in sport will arrive in her home city that summer and with her talent and current trajectory, few would bet against Samba-Mayela making a huge impact &ndash; her Olympic dream deferred, but not yet denied.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Cathal Dennehy for World Athletics</strong></p>

Injury denied Cyrena Samba-Mayela her Tokyo Olympics dream but she returned to the global stage in style in Belgrade.

From Olympic heartbreak to world indoor delight for Samba-Mayela

<p>After equalling his own world 60m hurdles record of 7.29 in the semifinals at the <strong>World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22</strong>, Grant Holloway of the United States was unable to go faster in the final, but despite having to re-set himself after whacking hurdle three his time of 7.39 was still amply sufficient to deliver him his first big international indoor title.</p>
<p>Having missed out on Olympic gold last summer, the world outdoor champion looked perfectly pleased with his performance in what was his 57th successive 60m hurdles win, a sequence that began eight years ago when he was 16. As well he might.</p>
<p>If anything, however, the celebrations of the silver medallist were more raucous, as France&rsquo;s 30-year-old European champion Pascal Martinot-Lagarde rose to the challenge as so often before to finish second in 7.50 after finishing fast and smoothly over the two final hurdles.</p>
<p>Bronze went to Holloway&rsquo;s compatriot Jarret Eaton on 7.53m, ahead of Spain&rsquo;s Asier Martinez, who clocked 7.57.</p>
<p>It was a second peak of achievement for Holloway after equalling the world indoor 60m hurdles record mark of 7.29 he set last year as he won his semifinal by a huge margin.</p>
<p>The 56th consecutive 60m hurdles win for the world champion and Olympic silver medallist initially showed up with a winning time of 7.31, but it was soon confirmed as 7.29 to match the figures he achieved in Madrid on 24 February 2021.</p>
<p>But as he strode away to prepare for his final it was medals, rather than times, he appeared to have on his mind &ndash; and one in particular.</p>
<p>The title defence of Britain&rsquo;s Andy Pozzi came to an end as he finished fourth in the first semifinal in 7.60.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The three semifinals produced their own mini-drama as Japan&rsquo;s Shusei Nomoto, third in the first race, and Britain&rsquo;s Dave King, third in the last, both clocked 7.565 as they contested the last qualifying place.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Another British athlete, Michael Rosswess, was involved the last time a similar turn of events occurred in these Championships, when he finished level with Marc Blume of Germany in the men&rsquo;s 60m semifinal at the 1995 edition in Barcelona, with both clocking 6.619.</p>
<p>It was decided by the toss of a coin &ndash; Rosswess lost, Blume went into the final, where he finished fifth.</p>
<p>On this occasion the means of deciding, eventually, took the form of the two hurdlers&rsquo; vest names which, under the gaze of the athletes involved, were solemnly folded up and sellotaped and put into a bag, from which a volunteer selected the lucky athlete &ndash; who turned out to be King, going through therefore to his first international championship final in unique fashion after equalling his personal best.</p>
<p>King made decent use of his luck of the draw, finishing sixth in 7.62.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Nomoto, meanwhile, was left to wander off into a corridor, hands to his face, desolate.</p>
<p><strong>Mike Rowbottom</strong><strong>&nbsp;for World Athletics</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p>
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<td style="background-color: #fd5249; text-align: center; height: 22px;" colspan="3"><strong>MEN'S 60m HURDLES MEDALLISTS</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 10%; background-color: #e9c968; text-align: center; height: 22px;">🥇</td>
<td style="width: 60%; background-color: #e9c968; height: 22px;">Grant Holloway 🇺🇸 USA</td>
<td style="width: 30%; background-color: #e9c968; height: 22px;">7.39</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 10%; background-color: #ced4d9; text-align: center; height: 22px;">🥈</td>
<td style="width: 60%; background-color: #ced4d9; height: 22px;">Pascal Martinot-Lagarde 🇫🇷 FRA</td>
<td style="width: 30%; background-color: #ced4d9; height: 22px;">7.50</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 10%; background-color: #bd895e; text-align: center; height: 22px;">🥉</td>
<td style="width: 60%; background-color: #bd895e; height: 22px;">Jarret Eaton 🇺🇸 USA</td>
<td style="width: 30%; background-color: #bd895e; height: 22px;">7.53</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="background-color: #34495e; text-align: left; height: 22px;" colspan="3"><a href="https://www.worldathletics.org/competitions/world-athletics-indoor-championships/belgrade22/results/women/800-metres/final/result" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #ffffff;"><strong>Full results</strong></span></a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><em>&nbsp;</em></p>

Grant Holloway runs 7.29 and then wins world indoor gold.

Holloway earns first world indoor gold after matching 7.29 world record in 60m hurdles semifinal

<p>At the age of 29, Jamaica&rsquo;s 2015 world 100m hurdles champion Danielle Williams is in the form of her life indoors - which means she will take some stopping at the <strong>World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22</strong>.</p>
<p>That 2015 performance in Beijing was a breakthrough for an athlete who had missed out on a Commonwealth medal by one place the year before.</p>
<p>And after failing to finish her heat in the 2016 World Indoor Championships in Portland, Oregon, Williams has steadily added further lustre to her hurdles career.</p>
<p>In 2018 she made that Commonwealth rostrum, taking silver on the Gold Coast, and at the Doha 2019 World Championships she added a second global medal to her collection as she finished third, having earlier in the year reduced her personal best to 12.32.</p>
<p>Last month has clocked an indoor personal best of 7.75 that is the fastest run so far this season.</p>
<p>But Williams will have no false sense of security given that the event is stacked with talent. Her compatriot Britany Anderson is the second fastest entrant in terms of this year&rsquo;s lists, having also run a personal best, 7.82.</p>
<p>Anderson, 21, perhaps has something to prove having suffered the frustration and disappointment of finishing eighth in the Tokyo Olympic final after hitting a hurdle heavily.</p>
<p>The Jamaican pair will be strongly challenged however by a United States contingent that will be headed by Gabriele Cunningham, who finished seventh in Tokyo and who has run an identical personal best to Anderson this summer.</p>
<p>Alaysha Johnson, who has also been in PB territory this season in clocking 7.90, will be another strong US contender.</p>
<p>France will be looking to 21-year-old Cyrena Samba-Mayela, yet another to have set a personal best in 2022 with 7.84.</p>
<p>Devynne Charlton of The Bahamas, who finished sixth in the Olympic final, won at last month&rsquo;s World Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Torun. She has clocked 7.90 this year and has a best of 7.89.</p>
<p>Two other names to watch out for are Switzerland&rsquo;s Ditaji Kambundji and Zoe Sedney of Netherlands.</p>
<p>Kambundji, the 19-year-old younger sister of world 200m bronze medallist Mujinga, went out in the heats at the Tokyo Games but has been in exuberant form this year, running a 60m hurdles personal best of 7.94.</p>
<p>Sedney lowered her own best to 7.95 in winning in Madrid earlier this month at the last of this season&rsquo;s World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meetings.</p>
<p><strong>Mike Rowbottom for World Athletics</strong></p>

A look at the contenders in the women's 60m hurdles at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22.

Williams leads fight for 60m hurdles gold in Belgrade

<p>Here&rsquo;s the question if you are not Grant Holloway. How do you beat a man who hasn&rsquo;t lost a 60m hurdles race in eight years &ndash; since he was 16, in fact &ndash; a total of victories that is now well past the half century mark?</p>
<p>Additional question. How do you beat a man who last year lowered the 60m hurdles world record of 7.30 &ndash; set by Britain&rsquo;s Colin Jackson in 1994 &ndash; to 7.29?</p>
<p>But here&rsquo;s the question if you are Grant Holloway. At last summer&rsquo;s Tokyo Olympics, as world 110m hurdles champion, you were beaten to gold by Jamaica&rsquo;s Hansle Parchment. So, as you seek a first world indoor title, could there be a similar shock in store at the <strong>World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22</strong>?</p>
<p>It has to be said that, barring accident or injury, Holloway looks very likely to be adding a second global gold to his collection on Sunday afternoon.</p>
<p>This season the 24-year-old from Chesapeake, Virginia, has continued to win in peerless fashion on the boards, recording a season&rsquo;s best of 7.35.</p>
<p>But if you wanted to think of someone who might just find the way to confound Holloway&rsquo;s winning ways this weekend, it would be Pascal Martinot-Lagarde.<br /><br /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/6231a9c03f68eadf2aef8a23.jpg" alt="" width="100%" /></p>
<p><br />The 30-year-old Frenchman has a face that always appears on the brink of a smile &ndash; that is, if he is not actually smiling. But this most amiable of men has fully demonstrated the iron part of his character over the years as he has come back from a sequence of injuries to return his form to its former heights.</p>
<p>In 2018 he completed a hat-trick of European titles in Berlin, taking gold on a photo-finish. A year later he earned a first world outdoor medal, bronze, in Doha.</p>
<p>Martinot-Lagarde&rsquo;s record indoors is at least as good. He has a gold, two silvers and a bronze at the European Indoor Championships; two silvers and a bronze in the World Indoors.</p>
<p>An exuberant athlete, he has the champion&rsquo;s knack of raising his game when it is most needed.</p>
<p>Not that Martinot-Lagarde will be the only serious threat to the equally exuberant US athlete.</p>
<p>His French teammate Wilhem Belocian won the European 60m hurdles title in Torun last year in a personal best of 7.42 &ndash; 0.03 faster than Martinot-Lagarde&rsquo;s best.</p>
<p>Holloway&rsquo;s compatriot Jarret Eaton also has serious credentials as a 7.43 athlete who has run 7.47 this year.</p>
<p>And Poland&rsquo;s Damian Czykier will be on a high after his victory on the home ground of Torun in last month&rsquo;s World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in 7.48 &ndash; a massive personal best.</p>
<p>Britain&rsquo;s defending champion Andy Pozzi has clocked 7.59 this season, a little off his personal best of 7.43, but his performance in the last Indoor Tour Gold meeting before the Belgrade 2022 event, at Madrid on 2 March, boded ill as he scraped through his heat after clocking 7.73 but did not start the final.</p>
<p>In his absence his British teammate Dave King had an outstanding night, finishing third in a personal best of 7.57 that bodes well for him.</p>
<p><strong>Mike Rowbottom for World Athletics</strong></p>

A look at the contenders in the men's 60m hurdles at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22.

Holloway and Martinot-Lagarde in Belgrade hurdles head-to-head

<p>For Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, securing a strong season start in Karlsruhe last month was &ldquo;like revenge&rdquo;. Twelve months earlier, the French hurdles star had injured his hamstring at the meeting in Germany &ndash; sustaining a tear that would deny him the full indoor season he had planned and affect the beginning of his outdoor campaign.</p>
<p>Despite further injury issues, the 30-year-old recovered in time to make the Tokyo Olympics, where he finished fifth. But in Karlsruhe on 28 January, with those struggles behind him, his win in 7.54 marked the start of the next chapter, as Martinot-Lagarde looks to add to his impressive haul of world medals &ndash; first at next month&rsquo;s <strong>World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22</strong> and then again at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon in July.<br /><br /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/61f46322b3561d0a362992ae.jpg" alt="" width="100%" /></p>
<p><br />&ldquo;This year, it is like revenge, finally,&rdquo; said Martinot-Lagarde, reflecting on his season opener at the INIT Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe &ndash; this year's first World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Last year (in Karlsruhe) it was a really bad moment for me, because I got a big injury and it killed all of my indoor season and the beginning of my outdoor season. I was ok for the Olympic Games, but Karlsruhe was really horrible for me last year.&rdquo;</p>
<p>But now he has much happier memories of the meeting. Not only did his performance ensure a winning start to his season, his two results &ndash; 7.56 in the heats and then that 7.54 in the final &ndash; made for his quickest season debut since 2017, a season in which he would go on to win European indoor silver in Belgrade. In the same arena that will welcome athletes for global competition from 18-20 March, Martinot-Lagarde was just 0.01 off retaining the European indoor title he had won in Prague two years before, with Britain&rsquo;s Andrew Pozzi this time getting gold in 7.51 to Martinot-Lagarde&rsquo;s 7.52.<br /><br /></p>
<h2>Great consistency on the major stage</h2>
<p>Martinot-Lagarde&rsquo;s major medal tally is impressive. It all started back in 2010, when the then 18-year-old won the world U20 110m hurdles title in Moncton, Canada. There he kept his cool to clock 13.52 into a 2.4m/s headwind, his powerful performance putting him ahead of Norway&rsquo;s Vladimir Vukicevic and Britain&rsquo;s Jack Meredith.</p>
<p>Just two years later, Martinot-Lagarde had graduated from U20 gold to senior bronze, claiming the first of his World Indoor Championships medals in Istanbul. It was the beginning of a medal-winning streak that would see him secure three podium places in three consecutive editions of the championships, with Martinot-Lagarde adding a silver in Sopot in 2014 and a medal of the same colour in Portland in 2016.<br /><br /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/620106e49b2ec128735bdcd6.jpg" alt="" width="100%" /></p>
<p><br />Injury affected his preparations for the 2018 edition in Birmingham, where he finished fifth, but the following year his major medal collection grew yet again as he finished third in a dramatic 110m hurdles final at the World Championships in Doha.</p>
<p>After that race he explained how it felt like redemption following his fourth-place finishes at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing and 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t sleep during some days after being fourth,&rdquo; said the six-time European medallist. &ldquo;I think you could digest it better if you were last, but when you are fourth it&rsquo;s like you are almost on the podium, and this &lsquo;almost&rsquo; is very difficult to digest. Today it is totally different. Finally, I get my medal.&rdquo;</p>
<p>But rather than satisfy his hunger, that performance only whet his appetite for more.<br /><br /></p>
<div style="padding: 15px 20px 5px 20px; border: 2px solid #69D7E1;">
<h3 style="color: #69d7e1; text-align: center;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a style="color: #69d7e1;" href="https://worldathletics.org/athletes/france/pascal-martinot-lagarde-14360095" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Martinot-Lagarde's major medals</a></span></h3>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>World Championships (110m hurdles)</strong><br />🥉 Doha 2019, 13.18</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>World Indoor Championships (60m hurdles)<br /></strong>🥈&nbsp;Portland 2016, 7.46<br />🥈 Sopot 2014, 7.46<br />🥉 Istanbul 2012, 7.53</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>World U20 Championships (110m hurdles)<br /></strong>🥇 Moncton 2010, 13.52</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>European Championships (110m hurdles)<br /></strong>🥇 Berlin 2018, 13.17<br />🥉 Zurich 2014, 13.29</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>European Indoor Championships (60m hurdles)</strong><br />🥇 Prague 2015, 7.49<br />🥈&nbsp;Glasgow 2019, 7.61<br />🥈 Belgrade 2017, 7.52<br />🥉 Gothenburg 2013, 7.53<br /><br /></p>
</div>
<p><br />It was in 2014 that Martinot-Lagarde ran his 60m hurdles PB of 7.45 as well as his 110m hurdles best, that 12.95 performance in Monaco breaking the French record that had been set by Ladji Doucoure in 2005, the same year in which he won the world title in Helsinki. In an interview with World Athletics two years later, Martinot-Lagarde explained where that accomplishment left him in terms of his goals.</p>
<p>&ldquo;When I watched Ladji Doucoure when I was young, I had a star in my eyes,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I watched him like, &lsquo;wow, he&rsquo;s a big champion, that&rsquo;s too far for me&rsquo;. But year after year I realised I could do something similar.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I finally beat his French record and at that time I just erased one record, but now my next objective is to have his medal. I have never got the gold &ndash; no Olympic gold, no world gold &ndash; and I work for it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Although global gold again eluded him in Tokyo, the fact that he made it to the start line at all is a mark of his hard work and determination.</p>
<p>&ldquo;There is only one thing that I can say: everything comes from your mind,&rdquo; he said after racing in his second Olympic final. &ldquo;Today, I didn't run with my body, I didn't run with my muscles &ndash; I ran with my mind because I wanted to be a warrior.</p>
<p>&ldquo;My body is pretty bad. I have pain everywhere, but I'm still running. I still stand up,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;I just wanted to go home with a medal, but today, it's not my day. I hope in Paris 2024 I will be better. Rio: fourth. Tokyo: fifth. I hope for Paris.&rdquo;<br /><br /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/620107c79b2ec128735bdcd9.jpg" alt="" width="100%" /></p>
<p><br />But first he will hope that his road to that home Olympic Games in Paris goes via Belgrade and Oregon this year, as an opportunity to upgrade his collection of global medals to include that missing gold.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I try to do my best every time in every championships, and there are three of them this year,&rdquo; said Martinot-Lagarde, who also has the chance to defend his European 110m hurdles title in Munich in August.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Rendez-vous &agrave; Eugene this summer, and in Belgrade!&rdquo;</p>
<p><strong>Jess Whittington for World Athletics</strong></p>

For Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, securing a strong season start in Karlsruhe last month was “like revenge”.

Martinot-Lagarde seeks more medal success in Belgrade

<p>Britain&rsquo;s Tiffany Porter, who claimed four world medals and a European title during her successful hurdles career, has retired from competitive athletics.</p>
<p>The 34-year-old, holder of the British 60m hurdles and 100m hurdles records, announced her retirement on Saturday (5) and added that she was excited for the next chapter, which begins with her leading the on-field presentations of athletes at this weekend&rsquo;s <a href="https://worldathletics.org/competitions/world-athletics-indoor-tour/news/holloway-staten-island-new-balance-indoor-grand-prix" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>New Balance Indoor Grand Prix</strong></span></a>, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting.</p>
<p>Having discovered her sprint ability while at school, Porter was later introduced to the hurdles and her performances earned her a scholarship to the University of Michigan. While there, Porter &ndash; then competing under her maiden name of Ofili &ndash; claimed five consecutive NCAA titles and bronze in the 100m hurdles at the 2006 World U20 Championships in Beijing.</p>
<p>&ldquo;In elementary school I always looked forward to field day because it was an opportunity for us to meet on a &lsquo;grand scale&rsquo;," reflected Porter in her &lsquo;love letter to track and field&rsquo;, published to coincide with her retirement.&nbsp;</p>
<p>"I would race (and beat) all the other boys and girls my age, and then be rewarded with ice cream after. That&rsquo;s when I learned that I had a deep love for competing and the adrenaline rush was addictive."</p>
<p>Her 12-year professional career would see her go on to win three world indoor 60m hurdles medals &ndash; claiming silver in Istanbul in 2012 and bronze in both Sopot in 2014 and Portland in 2016 &ndash; as well as 100m hurdles bronze at the 2013 World Championships in Moscow.</p>
<p>Porter became the European 100m hurdles champion in 2014, adding a bronze to her collection in Amsterdam in 2016. Her two European indoor medals were claimed a decade apart &ndash; her silver secured in Paris in 2011 and her bronze achieved in Torun last year.<br /><br /></p>
<p><img src="https://assets.aws.worldathletics.org/61feb9aab8317ce6e1d8bb3e.jpg" alt="" width="100%" /></p>
<p><br />A three-time Olympian, Porter reached the semifinals on her debut in London in 2012 and placed seventh in the final in Rio four years later. She and her husband Jeff &ndash; a fellow Olympian and coach to Porter in the latter stages of her career &ndash; welcomed the arrival of their daughter Chidera in 2019 and Porter returned to the sport to qualify for her third Olympic Games in Tokyo, where she made the semifinals.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I competed in my third and final Olympic Games in August 2021,&rdquo; Porter wrote. &ldquo;That feat was the culmination of countless hours of work, sacrifice, dedication, perseverance, and heart. Attending the Tokyo Olympic Games, this time knowing my child was watching, is a moment that I will never forget.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Porter ran her British 60m hurdles record of 7.80 when claiming her European indoor silver in 2011 and her national 100m hurdles record of 12.51 in 2014. That same year she claimed Commonwealth Games silver in Glasgow.</p>
<p>Porter also worked as a pharmacist alongside her athletics career, having earned her doctorate in pharmacy while at the University of Michigan.</p>
<p><strong>World Athletics</strong></p>

British hurdler Tiffany Porter has announced her retirement from athletics.

Multiple world medallist Porter retires

<p>World indoor champion Andrew Pozzi is to open his <strong>World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold</strong> campaign at the INIT Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe on 28 January, when he will again go up against world medallist Pascal Martinot-Lagarde in the 60m hurdles.</p>
<p>A former winner in&nbsp;Karlsruhe, Pozzi clocked&nbsp;7.44 &ndash; a time which remains his second-quickest ever, just 0.01 off his PB &ndash; for victory in 2017 and the Briton went on to win the European indoor title later that season. The following year, he added the world indoor title to his CV, gaining gold on home soil in Birmingham.</p>
<p>Martinot-Lagarde finished seventh on that occasion in Karlsruhe but&nbsp;was in medal-winning form by the time of the European Indoor Championships in Belgrade, finishing just 0.01 behind&nbsp;Pozzi for silver, which he added to the gold he won in Prague two years earlier. He also claimed European indoor silver in 2019 and bronze in 2013, plus world indoor medals in 2012, 2014 and 2016, while in the 110m hurdles his world bronze was claimed in 2019, the year after his European Championships victory.</p>
<p>This will be&nbsp;Martinot-Lagarde's fifth appearance in Karlsruhe, with the 30-year-old also having raced in the German city in 2012, 2013 and 2021.</p>
<p>They will line up alongside their fellow European indoor gold medallist&nbsp;Wilhelm Belocian of France, who won in Karlsruhe last year before taking the continental title in Torun in a PB of&nbsp;7.42, 0.01 ahead of Pozzi. Germany's Martin Vogel joins them in the field.</p>
<p>Already announced for the meeting&nbsp;are&nbsp;Elliot Giles and Andreas Kramer in the 800m, and world record-holder Mondo Duplantis in the pole vault.</p>
<p>The&nbsp;INIT Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe is the first Gold level meeting in the 2022&nbsp;World Athletics Indoor Tour calendar, with the action then moving on to Manhattan, Staten Island, Lievin, Birmingham, Torun and Madrid.</p>

World indoor champion Andrew Pozzi is to open his World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold campaign at the INIT Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe, where he will again go up against world medallist Pascal Martinot-Lagarde.

Pozzi, Martinot-Lagarde and Belocian set for Karlsruhe hurdles clash

<p>In a special episode of the World Athletics podcast, guest host Joanna Hayes is joined by fellow hurdles greats Gail Devers, Sally Pearson and Derval O'Rourke as they discuss the impact of athletics, memorable Olympic Games moments and more.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is a sport that opened doors for us,&rdquo; says Devers, who won two Olympic 100m titles for the USA as well as numerous world gold medals in the hurdles, sprints and relay. &ldquo;When somebody opens a door for you, you&rsquo;re supposed to put your foot in it to bring somebody else along with you and World Athletics has allowed for us to do that from every level.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Like being in Doha and, you know, putting on little clinics for the kids. Starting them off, I was so excited about the little hurdles that they had out there. I was like: &lsquo;Oh no, these are cute. I need these back in the States&rsquo;. But it&rsquo;s giving back, it truly is. They allow for us to give back.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Track and field is probably the cheapest sport to be in and to be involved in but what you learn from being involved in track and field is what&rsquo;s going to take you to any arena in life. It&rsquo;s that &lsquo;never give up&rsquo; attitude.&rdquo;<br /><br /></p>
<p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b83WG6lQ2UA" width="100%" height="400" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><br />It&rsquo;s that attitude which O'Rourke hopes is instilled in her own daughter, too.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s really interesting being a mum to a girl because I feel so strongly about women having their place in the world. Being heard, being seen,&rdquo; explains Ireland&rsquo;s 2006 world indoor 60m hurdles champion. &ldquo;I am always saying to her: &lsquo;If you have something to say, stand up and say it. Let your voice be heard.&rsquo;&nbsp;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s funny because she has no idea about me really as an athlete. People say to her randomly in Ireland: &lsquo;Oh, your mummy was fast&rsquo;. She&rsquo;ll just look at them really seriously and she&rsquo;ll say: &lsquo;I&rsquo;m faster&rsquo;. But she really believes it and I just run with it. I&rsquo;m like: &lsquo;Okay, you&rsquo;ve got me&rsquo;.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I feel like track and field, for me, gave me this area that just opened up the world to me as a woman. It just gave me all these opportunities. I feel like for her, it&rsquo;s really important to me that sports is of some part of her life in whatever way, shape or form to make her feel good about herself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Having self-belief was also a big part of Pearson&rsquo;s Olympic journey.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The first part of my 2008 silver medal was even before I got to the Olympics,&rdquo; says Australia's two-time world and 2012 Olympic 100m hurdles champion.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I remember emailing my auntie who lives in England, because obviously we all need somewhere to stay when we go to Europe to do the circuit. She said to me: &lsquo;You can only stay here if you win an Olympic medal&rsquo;. I was like: &lsquo;Oh, okay&rsquo;.</p>
<p>"Obviously [she was] being sarcastic. But as soon as she said that it was like, &lsquo;huh&hellip;&rsquo;. Something just lit a fire in me and I was like &lsquo;okay, I&rsquo;m gonna do that&rsquo;. And it was almost like what Derval was saying about her World Indoors. It was like it was guaranteed in my head: &lsquo;I am going to do that, I know I can do that&rsquo;.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Download the full podcast for free via <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/iaaf-inside-athletics-podcast/id1340268954?mt=2&amp;ls=1&amp;ign-mpt=uo%3D4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iTunes</a></strong></span>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/7vIXY6UZTkopeqoMsV4aQN" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Spotify</strong></span></a>.</p>
<p>All past episodes, including links to the podcast on a range of streaming platforms, can be found on&nbsp;<a href="https://audioboom.com/channels/4942781" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Audioboom</strong></span></a>.</p>

World Athletics podcast – celebrating women in athletics

<p><br />It took a little time to confirm the true magnitude of his performance, but Grant Holloway fulfilled all the pre-meeting predictions and consigned Colin Jackson&rsquo;s long-standing world indoor 60m hurdles record to history with a run of 7.29* in Madrid on Wednesday (24).</p>
<p>Holloway&rsquo;s world indoor record inevitably provided the highlight of the final meeting of the <strong>2021 World Athletics Indoor Gold </strong>series and it was provided in almost clinical fashion, despite Holloway&rsquo;s assertion that he was relaxed about the record and was just racing for fun.</p>
<p>He was the first to rise out of his blocks and then produced a display of textbook technique over the barriers that it would be difficult to find fault with even to the smallest degree.</p>
<p>Holloway knew he had run fast as soon as he crossed the line as the trackside clock showed 7.32 but initially looked slightly disappointed that he had not run faster than his heat time, which had equalled his own world-leading time of 7.32 from Lievin two weeks ago.</p>
<p>However, the unofficial time on display had been a few hundredths slow all night and officials told the nonplussed Holloway several times just to wait a moment for the official time.</p>
<h3>Time waits for no one</h3>
<p>After what seemed like an eternity &ndash; but which was in reality little more than a minute &ndash; it was finally confirmed that Holloway had gone into new territory as the stadium announcer shouted 7.29.</p>
<p>However, as the announcement was in Spanish and Holloway&rsquo;s mastery of the language is a little rusty despite the fact that he took classes in the subject in high school, the hurdler continued to look around for a translation and confirmation of his feat.</p>
<p>Once the uncertainty was resolved, a broad smile finally broke over Holloway&rsquo;s face.<br /><br /></p>
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<p><br />&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t say it was a perfect race, but I tied my PR in the heat and that usually means I run faster in the final,&rdquo; said Holloway. &ldquo;I just went out there and executed my race to the best of my ability.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I said before the race that if the record fell, it fell. But my main goal was just to have fun and that&rsquo;s what I did. I know that it (7.29) is not going to be in the record books forever and when I fall asleep tonight &ndash; if I fall asleep &ndash; it will already be in the past. Now I will start looking forward. I want to get back to Gainesville (in Florida, where Holloway currently lives), talk to (his unrelated namesake) Coach Holloway, have a big old steak and go through the film.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The world record outdoors (12.80, which has belonged to fellow US sprint hurdler Aries Merritt since 2012) is definitely in my sights but I want to let all this soak in first, then my priority is win the Olympic Trials and then the Olympic gold medal.&rdquo;</p>
<h3>Seven-year winning streak</h3>
<p>Holloway now owns five of the eight fastest 60m hurdles performances in history.</p>
<p>To continue the statistics, this evening Holloway produced his ninth and 10th wins of 2021, and he extended his winning streak in indoor sprint hurdles races to 54 races. His last loss in an indoor sprint hurdles race came in 2014 when he was aged 16.</p>
<p>In Madrid, he won the race by 0.22, a yawning gap at this level with world indoor champion Andrew Pozzi finishing second in 7.51, an otherwise excellent time that moved him to equal third on the 2021 list.</p>
<p>Holloway had earlier given notice that the world indoor record was under threat when he flew to a time of 7.32 in his heat.</p>
<p>Gudaf Tsegay had preceded Holloway into the world indoor record books this winter with her 1500m run in Lievin. In Madrid, she opted to race over 15 laps of the track and produced the third-fastest 3000m time indoors when she crossed the line in 8:22.65, making her the second-fastest indoor performer in history.</p>
<p>The time was all the more remarkable because the 625 metres altitude of the Centro Municipal Deportivo Gallur usually mitigates against super-quick performances in distance events.</p>
<p>Tsegay had training partner Lemlem Hailu for company over the entire race as the pair reached 2000m in 5:34.84, just two seconds off the pace when Genzebe Dibaba set the world indoor record of 8:16.60 in 2014, but the pair drifted away from that target over the next couple of laps.</p>
<p>However, Tsegay had also been clearly been keeping something in reserve as she decisively pulled away from her compatriot with 500 metres to go and was never headed, with Hailu finishing second in a personal best of 8:29.28 and taking the World Indoor Tour title.<br /><br /></p>
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Gudaf Tsegay on her way to winning the 3000m at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Madrid</div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Barega never looks back</h3>
<p>In the men&rsquo;s 1500m, Tsegay&rsquo;s compatriot Selemon Barega was in front from the gun and turned the race into a time trial before crossing the line in an impressive 3:35.42 to clinch the tour first prize.</p>
<p>Spain&rsquo;s European indoor 1500m bronze medallist Jesus Gomez ran his own race in second place and was rewarded with an indoor best of 3:36.32. Having been 15 metres adrift with three laps to go, Gomez closed to just five metres at the line.</p>
<p>The non-scoring women&rsquo;s 1500m produced a surprise winner in the shape of Ethiopia&rsquo;s 20-year-old Hirut Meshesha, better known as an 800m runner.</p>
<p>The African Games 800m champion had paced her compatriot Tsegay to her recent world indoor 1500m record but finished her first serious international 1500m race in front of several better-known runners in 4:09.42.</p>
<p>In the women&rsquo;s 800m, Habitam Alemu got the first of the day&rsquo;s four Ethiopian victories. Alemu knew that she had already clinched top slot in the tour standings but was not content to rest on her laurels and started to move away from her nearest rival Nadia Power midway through the third lap.<br /><br /></p>
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Habitam Alemu on her way to winning the 800m at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Madrid</div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Going through 400m in 58.33 and then 600m in 1:28.37, Alemu kept on working hard and putting more distance between herself and the tiring Irishwomen, eventually crossing the line in a meeting record of 1:58.95, less than one second away from her tour record of 1:58.19 set in Torun last week.</p>
<p>Power was overtaken in the closing stages by Spain&rsquo;s Esther Guerrero, the pair clocking 2:01.13 and 2:01.55 for second and third place, respectively.</p>
<h3>World lead for Visser</h3>
<p>Preceding Holloway by just 10 minutes, Nadine Visser equalled Christina Clemons&rsquo; 60m hurdles world lead of 7.81 from a week ago in Torun. Like Holloway, she did not touch a single barrier, and took 0.02 off her three-year-old national record. Visser had earlier run a European-leading time of 7.89 in her heat.</p>
<p>Juan Miguel Echevarria returned to Madrid after jumping a world-leading 8.41m 12 months ago, the World Athletics Indoor Tour record, but the Cuban couldn&rsquo;t get near that mark this year. His 8.14m in the opening round &ndash; the only jump beyond eight metres of the afternoon &ndash; sufficed for victory but after his first jump he suffered a series of technical problems which conspired to mean he never went farther.<br /><br /></p>
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Long jump winner Juan Miguel Echevarria in action at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Madrid</div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>In a women&rsquo;s triple jump contest which was sadly missing Yulimar Rojas, the Spain-based Venezuelan having set a world indoor record of 15.43m at this meeting 12 months ago, the honours went to USA&rsquo;s Tori Franklin with a last-round leap of 14.22m, which edged out Portugal&rsquo;s 2016 European champion Patricia Momona by one centimetre.</p>
<p>However, Cuba&rsquo;s Liadagmis Povea found 14.05m and third place was enough to give her the tour title on the tie-break rules. Both she and Franklin collected 15 points but Povea got the nod thanks to a better individual mark on the tour, her 14.54m winning mark in Karlsruhe.</p>
<p>Three-time world indoor 400m champion Pavel Maslak took the tour title in his specialist event in audacious fashion.</p>
<p>Running aggressively in lane five from the gun over the first lap, the compact Czech sprinter hit the front as the runners broke for the inside and went through halfway in 21.25.</p>
<p>Although the much taller and long-legged Tyrell Richard was on his outside shoulder on the final bend, Maslak dug deep and held the inside line to hold off his US rival for the tour first prize cheque, crossing the line in a season&rsquo;s best of 46.12 with Richard 0.02 in arrears.</p>
<p>World pole vault finalist Iryna Zhuk of Belarus slithered over a national indoor record of 4.67m at the first time of asking and then watched Slovenia&rsquo;s Tina Sutej and Canada&rsquo;s Alysha Newman brought the bar down three times at that height to clinch the victory and first place in the tour standings.<br /><br /></p>
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Mariano Garcia wins the 800m at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Madrid</div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>In non-scoring events, the fastest man in the 60m was Ivory Coast&rsquo;s Arthur Cisse, who won the final in 6.59, while Spain&rsquo;s Mariano Garcia put down a marker that he should be viewed as an 800m medal contender at next week&rsquo;s European Indoor Championships when he beat several better-known names to win in an outstanding personal best of 1:45.66.</p>
<p>Bosnia and Herzegovina&rsquo;s world silver medallist Amel Tuka finished second in a national indoor record of 1:45.95, the same time as France&rsquo;s 2017 world champion Pierre-Ambroise Bosse, who was given third after the photo-finish was examined.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Minshull for World Athletics</strong></p>
<p><em><br />*Pending the usual ratification procedure</em></p>

It took a little time to confirm the true magnitude of his performance, but Grant Holloway fulfilled all the pre-meeting predictions and consigned Colin Jackson’s long-standing world indoor 60m hurdles record to history with a run of 7.29* in Madrid on Wednesday (24).