A strong French contingent including world decathlon record-holder Kevin Mayer has been confirmed for the 60m hurdles at the Meeting de Paris Indoor which takes place on 2 February at the L’Accor Hotels Arena.
The Meeting de Paris Indoor is the first European Athletics Indoor Permit Meeting of the season and the calendar runs through until the Serbian Open Indoor Meeting in Belgrade on 27 February.
Not only will home fans get to see Mayer in action again, the sprint hurdles line-up also features reigning European champion Pascal Martinot-Lagarde and world indoor bronze medallist Aurel Manga. A home victory is by no means guaranteed against Great Britain’s Andrew Pozzi, who won European and world indoor titles in back-to-back seasons in 2017 and 2018.
Pozzi won the European indoor title by just 0.01 ahead of Martinot-Lagarde before winning gold on the global stage the following year by an identical winning margin. Pozzi is marginally the fastest on paper in the 60m hurdles as well: 7.43 for Pozzi and 7.45 for Martinot-Lagarde.
It would be a considerable upset if Mayer defeated such a high calibre field but the multi-eventer should only be a few metres behind the hurdles specialists. Mayer improved his 60m hurdles lifetime best to 7.72 last year, missing the qualifying standard for the Glasgow 2019 European Athletics Indoor Championships by a mere 0.02.
A strong women’s pole vault field has also been assembled featuring Great Britain’s European bronze medallist Holly Bradshaw along with Sweden’s Angelica Bengtsson and Canada’s Alysha Newman. All three vaulters finished inside the top six at the World Athletics Championships in Doha.
Reigning European indoor and world outdoor champion Anzhelika Sidorova has also been announced as competing subject to having her Authorised Neutral Athlete status reconfirmed.