Noah Lyles, Femke Bol, Yaroslava Mahuchikh, Grant Holloway, Gudaf Tsegay, Josh Kerr, Mondo Duplantis, Karsten Warholm, Laura Muir, Ryan Crouser, Miltiadis Tentoglou… Stars over the rain and permanent clouds in Scotland. Almost everyone is there, Sebastian Coe, the president of the international athletics federation, can sigh with satisfaction, reviewing the list of entries for the Indoor World Cup, which takes place in Glasgow from this Friday to Sunday. The only thing he will miss is Coe, so concerned about the media glare of his sport, so distracted by inventing competitions and formats, some immovable champions like Shericka Jackson, Faith Kipyegon or Yulimar Rojas, outdoor athletes, or Jakob Ingebrigtsen, so touched that by For the first time in his prodigy’s life he skips a competition.
Mariano García, Ana Peleteiro, María Vicente, Mario García, Adel Mechaal, Moha Attaoui, Asier Martínez… The same satisfied observation is made by Spanish fans seeing the figures of a national team – and few miss the event, already weighed down weeks ago by the two-year sanction of the great figure, Mo Katir–, the hopes in his victories, in knowing how to live up to a challenge that is the first major international test in a year that athletically will end in August at the Olympic Stadium in Paris after passing through the European Championships in June at the Olympic Stadium in Rome, where the 1960 Games.
The male face, unusual in the competition, will be that of Noah Lyles, the king of speed, 100m and 200m, at the recent World Cup in Budapest. First a 200m specialist, the American has dived this year into the shortest distance (60 meters) to work more on the start and the first phase of the race on his path to perfection towards Usain Bolt’s records. Surprisingly for many, given his size, he has achieved the best time of the year at the altitude of Albuquerque (6.43s), which makes him a favorite even though the bombshell Christian Coleman (world record holder, 6.34s) is lined up next to him. , in 2018, also in Albuquerque), whom he already defeated this season.
Femke Bol, the incredible Dutch summer hurdler who reigns in the 400m dash in winter, will be the sun among women. Having just turned 24 years old, Bol has run four 400m events in February. In three of them he dropped below 50s (he only forgave the almost impossible barrier on a 200m track, the banked curves, so tight on the open road, in the national championship series, where he settled for 50.55s), and in one he beat the short track world record, 49.25s.
David Rudisha, King David, the 800m world record holder (1m 40.91s, London 2012), double Olympic champion, double world champion, only lost one major competition in his career, the final of the Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow precisely, in Hampden Park, 10 years ago. Perhaps that is why World Athletics has named him ambassador of the World Cups, because if Rudisha, who retired at age 28 due to injuries and a car accident, doesn’t like something, it is the short track. “I’m long-legged and I run terribly in the 200m,” he says in La Gazzetta dello Sport. “Besides, with so much return, I’m sure I’d keep track of things wrong and wouldn’t know where I was.” This problem will not exactly be the one that worries Mariano García the most, along with María Vicente, leader of the Spanish team. The Murcian arrives as the current 800m champion, defending the title won in Belgrade two years ago, and revived for the competition after a very tough 2023. He is accompanied in the adventure by Moha Attaoui, the Cantabrian from Torrelavega who has recently arrived to the world elite. And the Spanish 800m is so dense that in Glasgow he did not find a place on the team (limited to two athletes per event), Adrián Ben, the Galician from Viveiro, European champion a year ago on the indoor track in Istanbul and finalist in the outdoor World Championships. free and in the Olympic Games.
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