Organisers of the INIT Meeting Karlsruhe – the first World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting of 2022 – are adding the finishing touches as they prepare for the series opener on 28 January.
The seven-meeting Gold tour will then head straight to the US for stops in Manhattan (29 January) and Staten Island (6 February) before returning to Europe for the meetings in Lievin (17 February), Birmingham (19 February) and Torun (22 February) before the concluding competition in Madrid on 2 March.
The scoring disciplines on the World Indoor Tour rotate each year. For 2022 they are:
Women: 400m, 1500m, 60m hurdles, high jump, long jump
Men: 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.
Athletes already announced include world pole vault record-holder Mondo Duplantis for the INIT Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe and the Müller Indoor Grand Prix in Birmingham, with Olympic 800m silver medallist Keely Hodgkinson joining him in Birmingham.
The Millrose Games is set to star Olympic 800m champion Athing Mu, Olympic shot put champion Ryan Crouser, Olympic pole vault champion Katie Nageotte and 2016 world indoor 60m champion Trayvon Bromell, who will also race at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, where he will be joined by world indoor 60m hurdles record-holder Grant Holloway.
The Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais features Olympic 100m champion Marcell Jacobs, Olympic 1500m champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Gudaf Tsegay, who returns to the venue of her world indoor 1500m record set last year and will this time race the mile.
One year on from their brilliant battle over 3000m in Lievin, the trio of Getnet Wale, Selemon Barega and Lamecha Girma will race over the distance again at the Copernicus Cup in Torun.
The 2022 World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold series will enjoy more broadcast coverage than ever this season with, as of today, 22 broadcast deals agreed by Infront.
This includes free-to-air agreements with SVT in Sweden, TVE in Spain and MTV IN in Finland and new agreements in Russia with Match Tv and North and Latin America through ESPN, Direct Tv, Flo Sports and Flow Sports.
Other takers include ORF in Austria, ARENA in the Balkans, Polsat Group in Poland and new broadcaster Sky in Italy on the back of the country’s success at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
2022 World Athletics Indoor Tour national broadcasters
Karlsruhe, 28 January: SWR
Manhattan, 29 January: NBC
Staten Island, 6 February: NBC
Lievin, 17 February: Léquipe 21
Birmingham, 19 February: BBC
Torun, 22 February: Polsat Sport
Madrid, 2 March: TVE
International broadcast intentions
Oversport: Albania
Arena Sport: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia
Match TV: Russia
Eleven Sports: Poland
Swiss Sport TV: Switzerland
Cosmote: Greece, Cyprus
Sky: Italy
TVE: Spain
A1 Bulgaria: Bulgaria
Sport TV: Portugal
Sportdeutschland: Germany
ORF: Austria
Ziggo: Netherlands
TG4: Republic of Ireland
MTV Oy: Finland
SVT: Sweden
Charlton: Israel
Sport 1: Lithuania
Direct TV: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela
ESPN: Belize, Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama
Flow Sports: Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, Saint Barthelemy, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, Saint Martin, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks & Caicos.
FloSports: USA, Canada, Australia
More broadcasters may be added in the coming days and will be confirmed nearer to the time of the first meeting.