by Alfonz Juck
Attaoui 2:14.52 ER/WL, de Sousa 697 WL/MR, Llopis 7.45 NR
MADRID (ESP, Feb 6): Domestic stars highlighted the World Indoor Tour Gold Madrid 2026. Mohamed Attaoui missed the 1000m short-track world record by 0.32 seconds, but clocked the third fastest indoor time and European short-track record of 2:14.52. Record attempt was perfectly paced by Filip Ostrowski up to almost 800m, Attaoui clocked 1:45.58 in the 800m split and Mariano García finished second (2:16.40). Enrique Llopis stormed to a new national record of 7.45 in the 60m hurdles in front of the home crowd to win over Lorenzo Simonelli (7.50). Agate de Sousa leaped to a world lead and meeting record of 697 in the fourth series of the long jump and won ahead of Irati Mitxelena (670 =PB). Jordan Geist repeated his world leading performance from Ostrava of 22.04 and defeated Rajindra Campbell (21.94) and Roger Steen (21.88) in a quality competition.
Ali Al Balushi of Oman won the 60m in 6.53 from Cuba’s Yenns Fernández (6.56) and Eugene Amo-Dadzie of Great Britain (6.59 =PB). Lieke Klaver clocked 51.26 to win the 400m ahead of Blanca Hervas (51.59), with Portugal’s Sofia Lavreshina winning the B-race in 52.07 indoor NR/PB. Charity Hufnagel of USA improved her lifetime best to 196 on her second and last attempt at the height after failing once at 194 (tried at 200) and overtook Maria Żodzik (194).
Birke Haylom topped the 1500m in 4:02.37 over Nadia Battocletti (4:03.59 PBi), Tshepo Tshite the 3000m in 7:39.11, and Audrey Werro won the 800m in 2:00.68, but was slower than B-race winner Rocio Arroyo of Spain, who clocked 1:59.97 PB and World Indoors standard.
