by Stuart Weir
2022 Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe, photo from Karlsruhe website
Mondo Duplantis, photo by British Athletics
The 2022 Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe was held Friday night, January 28, 2022. Stuart Weir, our European editor, wrote this piece after he observed the first gold meeting of the World Indoor Tour 2022.
Karlsruhe
Mondo Duplantis, photo by British Athletics
The first Gold Meeting of the Indoor Series got underway in Karlsruhe, Germany. The star of the show was Mondo Duplantis who won with 6.02m from KC Lightfoot, USA, who cleared 5.89m. Mondo commented: “Tonight was really special. It is a new season, but I just think I am so in tune with my jumping that I have a lot of confidence, whether it is the first or the last meet of the year. I know going into competitions that I am the favorite, the pressure is always going to be on me, but my young age doesn’t matter in that situation. It does not take pressure off me nor does it put pressure on me. The only thing I can control is myself, so I just try to go out there and jump as high as I can. Next week I am going to compete in Berlin. I’ve had a lot of competitions in Germany and I feel like I always do well there. I think it’s probably about time for a world record in Germany!” If only the young man had a little more self-confidence!
Elliot Giles, photo by British Athletics
Elliot Giles won the 800m, just as he had at the same meet last year. He led the race from the point that the pacemaker dropped out and worked hard to hold off Andreas Kramer by 0.05 seconds. Giles’ time was 1:46.78. He commented: “I just love this event! This crowd is amazing, I don’t think we had a crowd last year. I didn’t really have a tactic for the race. I just figured out ‘Let’s see, first race of the season, you don’t really know where you are’. It was really close in the end, I just had to keep my composure and I had to dip. But a win is a win! I’m going to go for every one of the season highlights this year. I’m going to have a go at the indoors, a go at the outdoors and take it from there. I don’t have any special goal though. In truth, I can only focus on the next race. I would like to win the world indoors, but I don’t want to think too far ahead”. Giles told me last September that he saw no reason why he could not be in all four championships this year (World Indoors and Outdoors, Commonwealth and Europeans.
Danielle Williams, photo by World Athletics (Beijing 2015)
2015 World Champion, Danielle Williams, won the 60m Hurdles in a PR of 7.84 from Cyréna Samba-Mayela (France) who was given the same time. The winner’s assessment was: “it was fast, of course. But I am never satisfied, I always want to run faster. Nevertheless, the personal best gives me a good feeling for the upcoming season. It’s been a while that I competed in front of so many spectators. My next stop will be the meeting in New York and after that I want to take a short break. But I will be back at the World Indoor Championships, my focus will be on Belgrade”.
Danielle Williams, photo by World Athletics (Beijing 2015)
Other GB athletes were Emily Borthwick, who equalled her PR of 1.91 to take joint first place with Imke Onnen of Germany. Andrew Pozzi (7.63) and David King (7.66) qualified for the final with Pozzi winning his heat. In the final neither could match their previous race with Pozzi, hitting three hurdles to finish eighth and King was seventh.
Emily Borthwick, photo by European Athletics
