World Athletics Indoor Tour to expand in 2021 (updated )

I love the World Athletics Indoor Tour. In 2019, I began with Boston and went to the whole series. It was eye opening! I loved seeing succesful meetings in Germany, Spain, UK and the United States. Each meet had its own feel and support. I stayed in small hotels, took trains and enjoyed a late night kabob shop in Torun, Poland. I look forward to joing the tour once again in 2022, hoping to see the meet in Boston in 2021, but that will have to be seen.

The World Athletics Indoor Tour has had some changes since the posting on this release.

The Millrose Games, citing Covid 19, cancelled their 2021 event, planned to be on 13 Feb.

The New Balance Indoor Games, to be held on 6 Feb.

The American Track League, meet 1, has been added, with a date noted as 24 Jan 2021.

World Athletics Indoor Tour to expand in 2021(updated)

The World Athletics Indoor Tour will offer enhanced competition opportunities next year with the introduction of three tiers of competition – Gold, Silver and Bronze – comprising 26 meetings spread across 12 countries in Europe and North America.

The expanded tour will broaden the geographical spread of meetings around the world and incorporate additional area level competitions.

Heading into its sixth season, the World Athletics Indoor Tour will feature six Gold level meetings in 2021, kicking off in Karlsruhe on 29 January and culminating in Madrid on 24 February.

The scoring disciplines on the World Athletics Indoor Tour rotate each year. For 2021 the Gold level scoring disciplines will be:

Men: 400m, 1500m, 60m hurdles, high jump, long jump
Women: 60m, 800m, 3000m/5000m, pole vault, triple jump, shot put

Each athlete’s best three results will count towards their overall point score. The athlete with the most points in each scoring discipline at the end of the tour will be declared the winner and will be awarded a USD$10,000 bonus along with a wild card entry for the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22.

The prize money allocation has been restructured to allow World Athletics to give more funds directly to the individual meetings, which will assist them to remain financial viable in these challenging times, and to maintain or increase the prize money on offer to athletes.

Each Gold meeting will offer at least USD$7000 in prize money for each individual discipline on the programme, including USD$3000 to the winner.

Silver meetings in the expanded tour will award at least USD$30,000 (at least $4000 per discipline and respecting gender equality) and Bronze meetings will offer at least USD$12,000 (at least $2500 per discipline and respecting gender equality).

World Indoor Tour event organisers are advised to build their Covid-19 health and safety protocols and mitigation plans based on the information and tool available on the World Athletics website.

Once adapted to the specific conditions of each indoor venue, this plan should be shared and approved by the local public health authority.

Due to the pandemic, the current plans are provisional, so dates and venues could change as the season approaches.