European 110m hurdles champion and home favourite Asier Martinez is one of the headline acts at the Navarra Indoor Athletics meeting as the international indoor season begins in earnest in Pamplona, Spain on Friday (29) evening.
The Navarra Indoor Athletics meeting is the first of 46 World Athletics Indoor Tour Silver, Bronze and Challenger meetings to take place in Europe this indoor season on the road to the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow from 1-3 March.
The current schedule of Silver, Bronze and Challenger events - all of which fall within the management and administration of European Athletics - can be found here. Live streaming details for this year’s World Athletics Indoor Tour will be announced in the early weeks of 2024.
More than 3500 tickets have been sold for the Navarra Indoor Athletics meeting which marks the comeback race for local favourite Martinez - who was born just outside Pamplona in Zizou Mayor - after missing the outdoor season through injury.
"I feel very good, I’m looking forward to starting to feel like before. I have always been very competitive and after being out of action for almost nine months, that desire has accumulated in me. And being at home, even more so," Martinez told the local media in the days leading up to the race.
Martinez, who also won a surprise bronze medal at the 2022 World Athletics Championships, will face one of his predecessors as European 110m hurdles champion in Dimitri Bascou from France as well as Koen Smet from the Netherlands and fellow Spaniard Daniel Cisneros.
Another highlight is the women’s long jump which features Spain’s three finest exponents - Fatime Diame, Maria Vicente and Tessy Ebosele. The multi-talented Vicente has also entered the 60m hurdles in Pamplona as she endeavours to return to the combined events after a successful season in the horizontal jumps in 2023.
Italy’s Diamond League champion Andy Diaz is the leading international name confirmed for Pamplona in the triple jump while his Italian teammate Roberta Bruni - a multiple world and European finalist - opens her season in the pole vault with the prospect of a home European Athletics Championships in Rome less than six months away.
The full entry-list can be found here.