By Citius Mag Staff
February 12, 2025
While Millrose set the bar so high that only Katie Moon could clear it, the World Indoor Tour keeps chugging along with the next Gold level meet set to kick off tomorrow, February 13 in Liévin, France.
Some of the early stops on the Indoor Tour have been a little underwhelming in terms of the top athletes they’re able to attract and advertise, but the list of stars entered for the Meeting d'Athlétisme Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais is even longer than its name. And although the big pre-race headlines are sigh focused around two high-profile world record attempts, there are a fair number of intriguing storylines to follow beyond chasing Wavelights around the track.
Will the Americans’ world records last less than a week?
Jakob Ingebrigtsen, already the indoor world record holder in the 1500m, is entered in the rare European indoor mile to take a crack at the four-day-old mark set by Yared Nuguse. Given Ingebrigtsen’s outdoor PB of 3:43.73 and the fact that his 3:30.60 indoor 1500m best is over a second faster than the Millrose boys came through, it’s certainly in the cards if the Norwegian time-trial maestro shows up fit and gets a good pace job.
Grant Fisher’s 3000m world record feels less likely to get quickly reset, but with 12:36 5000m runner Hagos Gebrhiwet, 7:24 man and steeplechase specialist Getnet Wale, and 3:29 1500m runner Niels Laros entered, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. After all, this is the track where Lamecha Girma set the old record in 2023.
Will Genzebe Dibaba’s world record last into its second decade?
Gudaf Tsegay looks to attack Dibaba’s 3000m world record from 2014 that she missed by a fraction of a second two years ago, and she’s joined in the race by current world leader Freweyni Hailu (a matchup made all the more spicy given there is no love lost between the two). Not to mention Olympic 10,000m silver medallist Nadia Battocletti and talented teenager Birke Haylom are in the field and it never hurts to have even more talent in the mix to keep things honest. Tsegay has her work cut out for her, but maybe the safest bet in the entire meet is that Battocletti will break her own national record of 8:41.72—perhaps even by 20 seconds or so.
A tale of two short hurdlers.
Both world record holders in the 60m hurdles are crossing the pond for a Eurotrip, but Bahamian Devynne Charlton and American Grant Holloway are meeting up on very different trajectories. Holloway has never lost a 60H race, and while he’s only raced once this season (a 7.42 win at the NB Indoor Grand Prix), he’s the proud owner of eight of the nine fastest performances ever run in the event and isn’t likely to be dethroned.
Charlton, on the other hand, has yet to recapture the magic she found in 2024. She sits at #5 on the 60H list so far this season without a win on her card yet this year. And posting one in the win column won’t come easy, as Jamaican Ackera Nugent and American Grace Stark are also making the trip over, Stark has twice run faster than Charlton’s 7.83 season’s best.
All four of 2025’s sub-two runners line up on the same track.
Four women have broken two minutes in the 800m so far in 2025, and all four will be on the starting line in Liévin. After their face-off last weekend, Tsigie Duguma and Jemma Reekie—who finished 1-2 at World Indoors last year—are back for more. But this time, they’re joined by a red-hot Shafiqua Maloney, coming off a 1:59.07 win in New York, and Prudence Sekgodiso, the South African who had a breakout year last season. Duguma is probably the favorite as the reigning World Indoor champ and fastest runner this year, but it’ll be a tightly-packed race up front.
The return of Erriyon Knighton.
Erriyon Knighton has run exactly one indoor 200m ever, on this track last February. That 20.21 debut put him at #12 on the all-time list, and it’s not crazy to expect that a little more experience with the two-turn 200m could put him much closer to Frank Fredericks’s world indoor record of 19.92. Where did Frederick clock that performance back in 1996, you might ask? On the Liévin track, of course. So it’s safe to say that if Knighton shows up in some kind of form, he’s at the right facility to drop something special.
Action kicks off tomorrow at 6:15pm local (12:15pm E.T.) with the big mile attempt set for 9:10pm/3:10pm. You can follow along with live results and view a full schedule and entry lists here. Allez, allez, allez!
Citius Mag Staff
