The Müller Indoor Grand Prix Birmingham welcomes more than 50 global medallists to Arena Birmingham this Saturday at the world’s number one ranked indoor athletics event with Olympic, world and European medallists on show for fans to see go head to head at the sold-out event.
Britain’s European 1500m champion Laura Muir competes in the women’s mile with an eye on Kirsty Wade’s 31-year-old British record of 4:23.86. Following her victory at the SPAR British Athletics Indoor Championships over 3000m and her Scottish indoor record over 800m in Torun, Muir’s race will be one of the highlights of the meet.
Just 0.01 seconds outside the world indoor mile record in at the Millrose Games in New York last week, Ethiopian Yomif Kejelcha’s next race on the track will be greatly anticipated as he goes over 1500m with Hicham El Guerrouj’s 22-year world indoor 1500m record of 3:31.18 under threat.
Among the Olympic champions in action are Jamaal’s Rio 2016 double gold medallist Elaine Thompson and Katerina Stefanidi, of Greece, who will feature in highly competitive women’s 60m and women’s pole vault fields respectively.
Thompson takes on the reigning European Indoor champion, Asha Philip, who claimed the SPAR British Athletics Indoor Championships title last weekend – her tenth national title in total - and Ivory Coast’s double world medallist Marie-Josée Ta-Lou.
Stefanidi has won almost all there is to win in the sport, and with only a few weeks until she aims to defend her European Indoor title, she’ll take on a strong field in Birmingham including European bronze medallist, Team GB star, Holly Bradshaw who cleared a British Indoor Championship record of 4.80m last weekend at Arena Birmingham.
Furthermore, five 2018 world indoor champions return to the venue including men’s and women’s long jump champion Juan Miguel Echevarria of Cuba, Serbian Ivana Spanovic and Ethiopian Samuel Tefera over 1500m, in addition to Kejelcha and Stefanidi.
World number two in 2019 following his 6.53 clocking in Berlin two weeks ago, Reece Prescod (GBR) goes in the men’s 60m, taking on world indoor silver medallist Su Bingtian of China. Newly-crowned British champion Dominic Ashwell and second-place Adam Thomas will have a last chance to chase European Indoor championship qualifying times.
