I’m afraid there’s no simple answer to this; it depends on the athlete and the calendar.
Athletics is somewhat unique among professional sports in that it has two completely separate seasons within a calendar year, and that doesn’t even take into account offshoots like cross country and road racing. The indoor season is less important than outdoor, primarily because you’d be hard-pressed to find an athlete who believes otherwise. For them, nothing trumps taking part in an Olympics or World Championship.
Nonetheless, governing bodies track and ratify records indoor, and they conduct championships there. It’s a completely official part of the calendar and the athletes who end up with medals appear to be more than happy with their success. Surely some of them even know their best chance at a medal is indoor because the competition is that much tougher outdoor.
The European championships kick off Thursday (2/3/23) in Istanbul, showing us again why the indoor season is such a different animal. With a World Championship coming up in August and the Olympics in 2024, most athletes at the pro level have admitted their laser focus on these major events. As such, whenever an athlete has had even the slightest muscle tweak in training, she has been likely to withdraw from Istanbul. In other cases, athletes have decided to skip indoor all together, or dabble in a meeting or two without ever intending to travel to Turkey. Earlier this week I compiled a list of athletes from among the top 10 performers this season who won’t be competing in Istanbul. This is just a few of them:
60m: Asher-Smith (GBR), Dosso (ITA), Lückenkemper (GER), Lansiquot (GBR)
400: Adeleke (IRL), Kaczmarek (POL), Yeargin (GBR), Anning (GBR), Ohuruogu (GBR)
60H: Skrzyszowska (POL)
TJ: Bekh-Romanchuk (UKR), Mäkelä (FIN)
That, however, leaves a lot of very attractive matchups to be contested: The possibility of a Kambundji-Neita-Swoboda final in the 60m; as many as five women who could win the 60 hurdles; another Mihambo-Vuleta battle in the long jump; a battle royale in the shot put; and a suddenly very interesting pentathlon between Adrianna Sułek and the woman whose crown she would like to snatch, Nafi Thiam, who hasn’t even competed yet this season.
Follow this link for results (corrected; World Athletics has you covered).
Information about how to watch the championships LIVE can be found here.
