BOSTON, Mass. (Jan. 21, 2020) –In just four days, the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix will kick off the 2020 World Athletics Indoor Tour with compelling matchups in the sprints and middle-distances, organizers announced today.
Limited quantities of tickets for the event on Jan. 25 are now on sale at www.nbindoorgrandprix.com or by calling 1-877-849-8722.
The New Balance Indoor Grand Prix has long had a tradition of excellent middle and long-distance competitions, and living up to that tradition this Saturday will be the men’s 1000m. The fastest man in the field on paper is Jake Wightman, the 2018 European and Commonwealth Games bronze medalist at 1500m. While it will be Wightman’s first 1000m race indoors, he ran 2:16.27 to set the Scottish outdoor record in 2018.
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Facing Wightman will be two 800m specialists, Saúl Ordóñez and Bryce Hoppel. Ordóñez owns the Spanish 800m outdoor record at 1:43.65 and won the bronze medal at the 2018 World Indoor Championships. Hoppel, originally from Midland, Texas, is coming off a remarkable 2019 season that saw him win NCAA indoor and outdoor 800m titles and finish an impressive fourth in the final of the 800m at the World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar.
Headlining the women’s 1500m will be Germany’s Konstanze Klosterhalfen, who also had an excellent 2019 campaign, winning the bronze medal over 5000m at the World Athletics Championships. Klosterhalfen also set German records over 3000m and 5000m outdoors and 1500m and one mile indoors last year.
The 22-year old will be challenged in the 1500m by a field that includes Ireland’s Ciara Mageean and Australia’s Jessica Hull. Last year, Mageean broke the Irish indoor mile record the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix and won the bronze medal over 1500m at the European Indoor Championships and finished tenth at the World Athletics Championships in a lifetime best of 4:00.15.
Australia’s Hull won the 2018 NCAA outdoor title at 1500m and the 2019 NCAA indoor title at 3000m. Hull also qualified for the 2019 World Athletics Championships, where she ran a personal best 4:01.80 in the semi-finals of the 1500m.
The men’s 60m will feature a clash of generations and continents. Demek Kemp, the 2019 US indoor champion at 60m, is making his first appearance at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix. He currently holds the world lead at 6.55. Also making his first appearance in Boston is Cameron Burrell. He is the 2018 NCAA 100m Champion and is coached by his father, former 100m world record-holder Leroy Burrell. Another former 100m record-holder who will factor in the men’s 60m in Boston will be Asafa Powell. One of the most prolific 100m runners in history, Powell twice broke the world record at 100m and at 9.72 seconds is the fourth-fastest man in history.
Also making their New Balance Indoor Grand Prix debuts will be two of Asia’s top sprinters, Yuki Koike and Xu Zhouzheng. Koike is the 2018 Asian Games Champion at 200m and last year ran a lifetime best 9.98 for 100m, becoming the second Japanese man to break the 10.00 barrier. Xu was a member of China’s national record-setting 4x100m relay team at last year’s World Athletics Championships and with a personal best of 6.48, is second on the all-time Asian list for 60m.
In the women’s 60m hurdles, Brianna McNeal has withdrawn.
The 2020 New Balance Indoor Grand Prix kicks off at 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 25 at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center at Roxbury Community College and is the only U.S. stop on the World Athletics Indoor Tour. The series of seven international events with stops in Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf (Germany), Torun (Poland), Glasgow (Great Britain), Liévin (France) and Madrid (Spain) awards overall tour winners $20,000 and a guaranteed spot at the 2020 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China (March 13-15).
Now in its 25th year, the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix has played host to nine world records and 13 American records.
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