Countdown
With the second season of the IAAF World Indoor Tour having come to a close after the last of its five meetings, 11 athletes – five men and six women in 2017 – have booked their place at the IAAF World Indoor Championships Birmingham 2018.
In addition to a winner-takes-all US$20,000 bonus, the 11 individual discipline winners will also automatically qualify for the next edition of the IAAF World Indoor Championships by ‘wild card’.
This means, for instance, that in Birmingham there will possibly be three Kenyan athletes in each of the men’s 1500m and women’s 3000m, three South Africans in the men’s long jump, three Jamaicans in the women’s 60m and three US athletes in the women’s 60m hurdles.
Previously only two athletes per nation per discipline have been allowed to enter the IAAF World Indoor Championships, but there is now a chance that, for the first time in history, one nation could sweep the medals in an individual event.
The non-scoring disciplines in this year’s World Indoor Tour will become the 11 scoring disciplines for next year’s World Indoor Tour, creating a total of 22 wild card entries for the IAAF World Indoor Championships.
The final decision about entering an individual athlete for the IAAF World Indoor Championships Birmingham 2018 still remains with the individual IAAF member federation but it’s possible that several national teams will be boosted by the success of their athletes on the World Indoor Tour.
The individual event winners of this year’s IAAF World Indoor Tour who have gained a ‘wild card’ to the IAAF World Indoor Championships Birmingham 2018 are:
Men
400m – Pavel Maslak (CZE)
1500m – Bethwel Birgen (KEN)
60m hurdles – Orlando Ortega (ESP)
High jump – Donald Thomas (BAH)
Long jump – Godfrey Mokoena (RSA)
Women
60m – Gayon Evans (JAM)
800m – Joanna Jozwik (POL)
3000m – Hellen Obiri (KEN)
Pole vault – Nicole Buchler (SUI)
Triple jump – Patricia Mamona (POR)
Shot put – Anita Marton (HUN)
