This weekend sees the fight for national titles and Istanbul qualifying marks take place at indoor championships across 32 European countries, as the build-up to the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul next month hots up.
At the Italian indoor championships in Ancona, double Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs will be hoping for a strong performance in the 60m. Last year’s World Indoor and European Champion will hope to improve on his season’s best of 6.57 seconds, ahead of defending the European indoor title he won in Toruń two years ago.
Meanwhile, at the UK indoor championships in Birmingham, Reece Prescod will aim to continue his impressive indoor season over 60m, which saw him dip under 6.5 seconds in Berlin last weekend, with a mouth-watering 60m showdown on the cards in Istanbul.
Daryll Neita will also hope to continue her exciting 2023 form over 60m after going just one hundredth of a second behind Asher-Smith's British record, also in Berlin last weekend.
Dortmund’s Helmut-Koernig-Halle will see some exciting head-to-heads, including a three-way 60m battle between Gina Luckenkemper, Lisa Mayer and Alexandra Burghardt, with long jump star Malaika Mihambo also starting, as well as competing in her preferred event.
In the 3000m, Konstanze Klosterhalfen, Hanna Klein and Alina Reh will fight for the German title, while Julian Wagner with Joshua Hartmann will duel for 60m honours. The 60m hurdles will see the "last dance" for Cindy Roleder, former European champion and World medallist, who plans to retire.
The Gallur Municipal Sports Center in Madrid will host the 59th edition of the Spanish indoor championships, with the distance races promising some exciting and high-quality battles. Line-ups are led by Mariano Garcia and Saul Ordonez in the 800m, Jesus Gomez in the 1500m, and Adel Mechaal and Fernando Carro in the 3000m. In the triple jump, Jordan Diaz will face Pablo Torrijos in the latter’s first competition of the season.
European 200m champion Mujinga Kambundji will race the 60m at the St Gallen Athletics Center in the Swiss championships, while Jason Joseph will also want to show good form in the sprint hurdles as Istanbul draws closer.
Star of Czech Indoors in Ostrava will be shot put reigning European Indoor champion Tomas Stanek who will be going for his fifth indoor title, and in the Dutch championships Femke Bol will be aim to continue her remarkable season, which has already seen her break 50 seconds in the 400m as well as set a world best over 500m.