To see the sheer number of families with kids in attendance was a big positive of the whole weekend. The excellent fan turnout was probably attributable to a combination of the Olympic hangover and the “Keely Effect”, but it hopefully translates into longer term growth for the sport in the UK. We are also fortunate enough to have the best stadium announcers in the game in Geoff Wightman and Katharine Merry, who are the go-to announcers for global events such as the World Championships.

The Championships served as the qualifier for the European Indoor Championships that will take place in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, from March 6th–9th. Given that the number of UK athletes qualified for World Indoors is pretty limited, thanks to aggressive qualifying standards, and with a lot of top athletes opting out of indoors all together, there wouldn’t have been much on the line in terms of World Indoor selection. In comparison to the complaints of previous years, the 2025 selection policies are reasonably generous, and particularly for Euro Indoors, British Athletics is sending a more or less a full team in the running events. It’s worth noting that the third selection spot was allocated based on season’s best rather than placing at the championships, resulting in a few third placers missing out to athletes who came further down the field.

There were a number of last minute withdrawals by some top stars including Jake Wightman, Melissa Courtney-Bryant, Jemma Reekie, and Molly Caudery, which meant we didn’t get to see some of the top matchups that were originally on the cards, but there were still a number of great races, in particular at the middle distances.

The biggest surprise result of the weekend was Tokyo Olympic silver medallist Laura Muir being outkicked by Hannah Nuttall for the win in the 3000m, albeit Nuttall is no slouch, having run 14.52.65 for 5000m last season, and missing out on the Olympics only due to the UK Athletics selection policy that excluded many of those with ranking invites from selection. Exciting 18-year-old prospect Innes Fitzgerald came third, and received the nod for the European team alongside Nuttall and Courtney-Bryant, with Muir declining selection and subsequently revealing that she suffered a slight injury during the race.

George Mills took the win over 3000m and set to see what he’s got against Jakob Ingebrigtsen at Euro Indoors after an impressive 7:27 solo performance earlier in the season. Interestingly, in third place was Henry Mcluckie, who paced Grant Fisher to his 5000m world record a week earlier, though he missed out on the team to Adam Fogg. Fogg ended up fourth in the race after falling ill earlier in the week and also threw some light on the drama around those grey Under Armour uniforms.

In the 1500m, Georgia Hunter Bell took the win over Revee Walcott Nolan, but there was an excellent run from Ellie Leather of Team Boss for third, which is her first UK medal (she missed the team in favour of Ava Lloyd, a training partner of Hunter Bell). Neil Gourley took the win in the men’s 1500m, followed by Tom Keen, who dived for the line to take second ahead of Tyler Bilyard, who is joining UW as a grad transfer in the fall to further augment Andy Powell’s production line of quality milers. Elliot Giles gets the third spot on the team ahead of Bilyard, after pulling up part way through the race.

In the sprints, the most interesting results included Amber Anning, last year’s NCAA Indoor champion, cruising to victory over 400m and looking set to challenge Lieke Klaver for the gold medal on her home turf in Apeldoorn, and will be joined by a strong 4 x 400m quartet that will look to upset the Dutch home favorites. In addition, Jeremiah Azu made a somewhat surprise appearance in the 60m (after his brother Alex was the one on the entry list earlier in the week), taking the win in 6.56 and looking like a strong contender for a medal at Europeans.