The Czech Indoor Gala announces the first star names that will appear on Tuesday 30 January 2024 in the Ostrava athletics arena as part of the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold.
Defending champion with the European champion against the home stars
Traditionally, the men´s 60m is one of the peak events of the Czech Indoor Gala every year. The highest quality should be provided not only by newly confirmed foreign acquisitions but also by Czech runners. Britain’s Jeremiah Azu will come to defend the victory from last year. He won the Czech Indoor Gala 2023 in a time of 6.58. The bronze medalist from the European Athletics Championships in Munich 2022 was in a great shape again this year when he defended the title of continental U23 champion in the 100 in Espoo, Finland, in a new personal best of 10.04. He can be proud of his indoor personal best of 6.56.
However, his big challenger will be the sprinting comet of the 2023 indoor season, the Italian Samuele Ceccarelli. The fast sprinter from the Apennine Peninsula managed to improve his PB at 60m this year to 6.47, the time he achieved at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul, where he gained the title. Under the open sky, he then improved his personal statistics in the 100m to 10.13 and also competed at Ostrava Golden Spike last year, where he finished second in 10.15.
Home best sprinters will want to take advantage of the presence of top foreign competitors. The ageless, soon-to-be thirty-seven-year-old Jan Veleba already knows what it’s like to win at the Czech Indoor Gala, when he dominated this meeting in Ostrava in 2022. Last year, he showed that even at an advanced sprinting age, he can still push his limits when he improved his personal record in Jablonec to 6.64. „Czech Indoor Gala is my favourite meeting. It’s the biggest indoor race in the Czech Republic and I usually do quite well there so I’m looking forward to it. I’m especially curious about Ceccarelli, who had an amazing indoor season. We’ll see if he can follow it up. I believe that I will come to Ostrava in good shape so that I can compete with the best. It will be my last indoor season, so I want to get the best out of myself,“ says the sprint matador.
Home athlete from Ostrava, Zdeněk Stromšík, who also is a former Czech record holder, the defending national indoor champion with a PB of 6.59 can surprise the opponents and please the local fans.
Duel of the British and Czech 800m school
The elite Czech 800m runners can look forward to a battle with the extremely fast Brits. This European running powerhouse will have at least two representatives at the Czech Indoor Gala – Max Burgin and Elliot Giles, who will face the best Czech runners Jakub Dudycha and Filip Šnejdr.
Max Burgin is one of the biggest running talents of recent years. The former European junior champion has great memories of Ostrava. In 2021, he won Ostrava Golden Spike meeting in the new European junior record 1:44.14. In the following season, he finished third in another quality time of 1:44.54. Burgin was already able to win at the Diamond League meeting this year in London in 1:43.85. With his PB from 2022 of 1:43.52, he will start at Czech Indoor Gala for the first time.
His significantly more experienced compatriot Elliot Giles already competed at the Czech Indoor Gala before. In 2022, he reigned in the 1500m in the meeting record of 3:35.93. However, he achieves even better performances at the 800m. With a time of 1:43.63 from 2021, he is also the second fastest indoor 800m runner in history in the world. In this discipline, he won, for example, bronze at the European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam in 2016.
The European junior champion Jakub Dudycha should also be on the start in Ostrava. Still only 18, coached by Lukáš Dejdar’s dominated the U20 category at the continental championship in Jerusalem and in his last outdoor start at the Zagreb meeting he flashed another improvement of the national junior record to 1:45.84. He would like to continue these performances indoors as well.
The Czech flag in this race will also be held by Filip Šnejdr, who is a regular participant of the Czech Indoor Gala. The fighter, who is preparing in the training group of Jakub Holuša, experienced his best race at the European Games in Chorzów this year, where he surprised the favorites and hung a silver medal around his neck.
Already earlier, the participation of a „poster girl“ Tereza Petržílková and Lada Vondrová in women´s 400m was confirmed.
The Czech Indoor Gala 2024 will take place on Tuesday 30 January 2024 in the Ostrava athletics arena. Tickets can be purchased via www.ticketportal.cz. Their price is 250 CZK / ca 10 EUR.