Karlsruhe can look forward to welcoming the world record holder. Beatrice Chepkoech from Kenya, the current world record holder in the 3,000 metres steeplechase, has confirmed that she will be at the starting line for the INDOOR MEETING this coming Friday, 29 January 2021. Although you won’t find any hurdles at the INDOOR MEETING, her start in the women’s 3,000 metres promises a record time, as her personal best indoors is 8:39.15 minutes. Last year, she was at the 1,500 metres starting line at the INDOOR MEETING and landed in fourth place.
Someone whose personal best indoors is slightly faster than Chepkoech’s is Melissa Courtney-Bryant. The British athlete celebrated her greatest international success at the 2019 European Indoor Championships in Glasgow. In 2021, the British athlete will be at the start again, this time under the name Courtney-Bryant, having married decathlete Ashley Bryant at the end of 2019.
The third introduction is for Fantu Worku, who is only 21. Fantu Worku also knows how to win at the INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe. Last year, she won in Karlsruhe in 8:37.58 minutes, which is her personal best in the indoor event.
There will be a test of strength between the strong women at the women’s shot put event during the World Athletics Indoor Tour. No less than Germany’s shot put queen, Christina Schwanitz, will be making her mark at the INDOOR MEETING in the battle for the podium. At the INDOOR MEETING, she will encounter, among others, Chase Ealey, who is currently in fourth place in the shot put world rankings.

A loud cry of joy filled the athletics arena in 2019. It was Ewa Swoboda‘s cry of joy. This happened immediately after she crossed the finish line of the women’s 60 metres at the INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe as its winner, thereby banishing Europe’s sprint queen Dafne Schippers to second place. In general, 2019 was the year of this Polish woman. The 23-year-old secured the overall victory in the women’s 60 metres following her victories at the INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe and the two meetings in Torun and Madrid – as well as her second place in Düsseldorf.
At the INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe 2021, she will meet Dina Asher-Smith and others. This means that she will be meeting the currently fastest women in the women’s 200 metres (world champion in Doha 2019), who can even take on the sprint queens from Jamaica and the USA with her fast times.
In addition to this, Ajla Del Ponte will also be participating in the 60 metres. The Swiss woman, who originally began her career in heptathlon, might still be waiting for her truly big international successes, but she has quite a few international successes to show for herself.
A German sprint star will also be there on 29 January. Tatjana Pinto‘s memories of the INDOOR MEETIG Karlsruhe should be quite positive given that she won the 60 metre finals in 2018 in 7.10 seconds – ahead of Lisa Mayer and Asha Philip.

Even today, everyone can remember the world record set by Genzebe Dibaba in 2014, back then in the Karlsruhe Europahalle. Now, the 1500-metre run is returning to the Europahalle with, amongst others, Gesa Felicitas Krause, European champion in the 3000-metre steeplechase in 2016 and 2018, as well as bronze medallist at the 2019 World Championships.
The 28-year-old recounts some of her best memories as being from Karlsruhe, where she ran what is still her current personal best of 4:08.91 minutes at the INDOOR MEETING in the Messehalle in 2016. One year earlier, she was crowned as German champion for the 3000-metre race in the same hall in Karlsruhe. “It’s good to know how much effort goes into planning such an event in the day and age of corona,” says Gesa Felicitas Krause, connected virtually from her training camp in Kenya, during a press conference on the INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe. “I am full of anticipation. I am looking forward to my start in Karlsruhe and am utterly grateful that this meeting can still take place during such trying times,” she continues.

Watching athletes plunge into the sand after their run-up in the long jump is always a spectacular sight. Every year, the long jump is one of the flagship events at INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe. On 29 January 2021 at the 36th session of the INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe, Juan Miguel Echevarria, Miltiadis Tentoglou and Eusebio Caceres will also be lining up at the start of the long jump alongside local hero Julian Howard. The men’s long jump is part of the 2021 World Athletics Indoor Tour, where athletes compete in Karlsruhe in 2021 for points that count towards the final overall victory.

The men’s 60-meter hurdles event will be a fast one. Because with the Frenchman Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, his compatriot Dimitri Bascou and the Brit Andrew Pozzi, three world-class athletes have indicated that they will compete in the hurdle sprint at the 36th INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe, which this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, will take place without spectators at the Karlsruhe Europa Hall.
One athlete who is very familiar with INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe is Pascal Martinot-Lagarde. Martinot-Lagarde, who was born in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés in France and whose personal best in the hall was 7.45 seconds, competed in the event as early as 2012 and 2013 – at that time in the Europa Hall – and in 2017 in the exhibition pavilion. Andrew Pozzi has competed only once at the INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe – but that one time was extremely successful. Because the 28-year-old Brit, whose indoor best performance of 7.43 seconds is still below that of Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, won the day at his first appearance in Karlsruhe. In the last men’s 60 meters in Karlsruhe he secured victory in a brilliant 7.44 seconds ahead of the Spaniard Orlando Ortega. The third member of the group is Dimitri Bascou, who won the hurdles sprint in 2015, the first event at the time in the exhibition pavilion. The 33-year-old Frenchman achieved an unbelievable 7.41 seconds, his personal best, in the hall. He first clocked that time at a meeting in Berlin in 2016, and it was the national record at the time.