Pierre-Ambroise Bosse will compete in the 1000m at the Meeting Hauts de France Pas de Calais in Lievin on 13 February, a European Athletics Indoor Permit Meeting, and the IAAF World Championships London 2017 800m gold medallist is intending to attack Mehdi Baala's long-standing French indoor record of 2:17.01.
Baala set his time in the German city of Karlsruhe back in 2005 and he is currently fourth on the European all-time list for the event. Bosse has an indoor best of 2:17.63 over five laps of the track, which he ran in New York four years ago.
Objectif record de France du 1 000 m pour Bosse Pierre-Ambroise lors du Meeting Hauts de France Pas de Calais.... https://t.co/Cer8gTe3Up
— TRACK and LIFE (@Track_and_Life) January 9, 2018
The European record, which Bosse could also be eyeing, has stood for almost 18 years and belongs to Denmark’s Wilson Kipketer, who clocked 2:14.96 in Birmingham in 2000.
Bosse – the 2017 French male athlete of the year – has been training for the last two months in Australia and has fully recovered from the facial injuries he suffered after being attacked by three men in the early morning of 27 August, less than three weeks after he won his world title and what proved to be his last race of 2017.
Other leading European athletes to compete in the revived Lievin meeting include France’s co-holder of the European 100m record Jimmy Vicaut, who runs in the 60m, and Poland’s three-time reigning European indoor 800m Adam Kszczot, who will compete in his favourite distance over four laps of the track in the Arena Stade Couvert, which was the venue for the 1987 European Athletics Indoor Championships.