World Athletics Indoor Tour

World marathon record-holder Brigid Kosgei is the standout name in the women’s field for the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon, while 11 men with sub-60-minute PBs will line up for the World Athletics Gold Label road race on 21 February.

The 2020 World Athletics Indoor Tour, a series of the seven finest indoor meetings on the planet, gets underway later this week with the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston on 25 January.

Ukrainian high jump duo Yaroslava Mahuchikh and Yuliya Levchenko will compete at the Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe on 31 January, while a host of global medallists will line up for the long jump at the Copernicus Cup in Torun on 8 February, organisers of the World Athletics Indoor Tour meetings announced on Tuesday (21).

Organisers of the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais have confirmed that sprint hurdlers Orlando Ortega and Pascal Martinot Lagarde, long jumpers Ese Brume and Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk and Ethiopian distance runner Selemon Barega will compete at the World Athletics Indoor Tour meeting in Lievin on 19 February.

Robert Keter’s world 5km record of 13:22 has been ratified.

Ethiopia’s teen phenomenon Tadese Worku and Kenya’s world 5000m silver medallist Margaret Chelimo captured convincing victories at the Cross Internacional de Itálica in Santiponce, near the Spanish city of Seville, the sixth leg of this season’s World Athletics Cross Country Permit series, on Sunday (19).

Yaroslava Mahuchikh broke the world U20 indoor record* in the high jump, topping 2.01m at the Demyanyuk Memorial High Jump meeting in Lviv, Ukraine, on Saturday (18).

Ethiopia’s Derara Hurisa wasn’t considered among the favourites for the Tata Mumbai Marathon but the late addition to the field upset the odds to win the World Athletics Gold Label road race in a course record of 2:08:09 on Sunday (19).

World Athletics officials have praised the planning and preparations for the World Athletics Championships Oregon21, after a busy week of meetings and venue visits in both Portland and Eugene, Oregon this week.

Defending champions Cosmas Lagat and Worknesh Alemu both proclaimed themselves fit and ready to not only bid for back-to-back titles at the Tata Mumbai Marathon, but the pair also aim to attack the course records on Sunday (19). 

Ethiopia’s Tadese Worku and Kenya’s Hellen Obiri will be the marquee athletes at the ‘Cross Internacional de Itálica’ in Santiponce on the outskirts of on Sunday (19), the sixth leg of the 2019/20 World Athletics Cross Country Permit series. The event promises to be a rematch of last Sunday’s races in Elgoibar as both podiums will be on show again.

The gladiatorial match-up the whole world has been waiting for – Eliud Kipchoge versus Kenenisa Bekele – is on and will take place on 26 April at the 2020 Virgin Money London Marathon.