Another edition of the Czech Indoor Gala meeting 2023 (World Athletics Indoor Tour Silver), will take place on Thursday (Feb 2) in the Ostrava athletics hall. On this occasion, a media briefing took place on Wednesday afternoon right on the racetrack with the participation of the stars of the meeting – Alaysha Johnson, Jeremiah Azu, Patryk Dobek, Zdeněk Stromšík and Tereza Petržilková.
The Czech Indoor Gala has already become a permanent fixture in the World Athletics Indoor Tour calendar and once again belongs to the silver category, which confirms its top quality. “We are already in the seventh year of this meeting, so we can talk about a certain tradition. Our original idea when creating it was to provide the best Czech athletes with high-quality foreign competition, to meet the nomination criteria at an international meeting at home. I am pleased that we manage to fulfil these ambitions every year. The great support from the Moravian-Silesian Region and the Statutory City of Ostrava also significantly helps us,” said Libor Varhaník, president of the Czech Athletic Federation, at the beginning of the briefing.
The men’s 60-meter sprint is a big attraction at every indoor meet, and the Czech Indoor Gala will be no exception. Jeremiah Azu, the bronze medallist from the European championship in Munich, came to Ostrava. The young Brit is in great form even at the start of this indoor season. Last weekend he won the meeting in Düsseldorf, Germany in a time of 6.60. His personal record from the previous indoor season is even better – 6.56. “I am happy that I can return to Ostrava. I already raced here at Zlatá tretra (Golden Spike). I won’t tell you any specific time for tomorrow’s race, but I would like to run really fast,” he said.
The victory from last year’s Czech Indoor Gala is defended by Jan Veleba. Last year he took the lead with a time of 6.65 and this year, even at the age of 36, he managed to push his personal record to 6.64 again. Ostrava-grown Zdeněk Stromšík is also in promising form, who presented himself at the Jablonec Indoor meeting with a time of 6.68. “Tomorrow’s race is important for me towards the ranking for the European Indoor Championship in Istanbul. I spend a huge amount of time in this hall and competing in front of the home crowd is always a great motivation,” Stromšík revealed.
American Alaysha Johnson is a very attractive overseas acquisition in the women’s 60 hurdles. Last year, she shone at the US trials with an incredibly fast time on the 100 hurdles, when she took silver in Eugene in 12.35. She has raced twice this year and ran a new personal best of 7.84 on first occasion in Iowa. “I’m glad to be here. I feel really good and I would like to attack not only the hall record, which is 7.99, but also my personal best, so I hope that I will leave the hall tomorrow with both goals accomplished,” she shared her ambitions.
In Ostrava, however, she will face the two-time European indoor champion at this distance, Nadine Visser from the Netherlands. The former multi-eventer has conquered the last two continental championships under the roof, and in her victory two years ago in Torun, she became the seventh fastest European woman in history in this discipline with a time of 7.77. The two favourites of the Ostrava race competed at Sunday’s meeting in Düsseldorf, and Johnson came out better from this fight, finishing third in 7.88. In her racing debut this year, Visser was fourth in 7.93.
The defender of the victory from last year is Helena Jiranová, who ran her PB 8.03 right here at the Czech Indoor Gala. Two other Czech hurdlers, Tereza Vokálová and Tereza Elena Šínová, are in top form. Both have already set their career bests to 8.15 this year.
One of the highlights of the meeting should be the women’s 400-meter race, where we will see, for example, the fourth woman of last year’s world championship in Eugene, the Dutchwoman Lieke Klaver, who under the open sky came significantly close to the fifty-second mark, with time of 50.18. Our best quarter-milers, headed by Lada Vondrová and Tereza Petržilková, will not be missing either. The latter is in top form this year and currently even leads the national standings with a time of 52.74. “I have had a good preparation. I have basically improved all training attributes and it can be seen in the results. I would like to attack the entry for Istanbul, which is 52.20,” she said.
In the men’s 800 meters, we can look forward to Patryk Dobek. Bronze medallist of the Olympic final in Tokyo and reigning European indoor champion from Poland moved to Ostrava directly from the training camp in South Africa. “Ostrava is my first start in the indoor season, in which I would like to defend the title of European champion from Torun. It will be a big test of my form after the camp in Africa and it will tell me a lot,” he believes. Dobek is the favourite on paper, but to confirm it will definitely not be easy. Among his opponents are, for example, the highly experienced Amel Tuka from Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as almost the entire Czech elite.
