Kipruto, Krop in action in Torun

World Athletics Indoor tour champion Collins Kipruto is back in action on Tuesday 22 February as the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold series moves to the ORLEN Copernicus Cup in Torun.

Kipruto is fresh from bagging gold in the men's 800m at the Müller Indoor Grand Prix, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Birmingham. 

The Saturday 19 February night victory came two days after a disappointing ninth place finish for in the same distance at the Indoor Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de- Calaisin Lievin, France.

The Kenyan recorded a personal best of 1:45.39, the second, fastest time in the world this year, finishing ahead of Elliot Giles (1:45.42), the second-best time of his career, and 2019 European indoor champion Alvaro de Arriba was third in a season’s best of 1:45.82.

Kipruto and the Britton Giles renew rivalry in Torun. Giles has great memories of Torun, having run 1:43.63 to become the second-fastest indoor 800m runner of all time at last year’s meeting, and he returns off the back of a series of first and second-place finishes in recent weeks.

Andreas Kramer is also back to race in the stadium where he ran his Swedish indoor record of 1:45.09 last year, and they are joined by athletes including Bosnian world silver medalist Amel Tuka, Ireland’s Mark English and Poland’s world indoor champion Adam Kszczot, who continues his farewell indoor tour before retirement.

Poland's world indoor and outdoor medallist Marcin Lewandowski also drops down in distance to contest the four-lap event and is looking forward to racing in front of a home crowd as a busy year picks up pace.

Another Kenyan, Jacob Krop, will hope to build on his PB of 7:34.67 in 3000m he ran in Lievin, in what is his debut indoor season. Krop will have to contend with stiff competition from Ethiopians Selemon Barega, Lamecha Girma and Getnet Wale.

Wale, Barega and Girma respectively moved to second, third and sixth on the world indoor all-time list at that time thanks to their performances in Lievin 12 months ago, with steeplechase specialist Wale just missing Daniel Komen’s long-standing world indoor record of 7:24.90.

The three athletes battled again in Lievin last week but rather than chasing times they were chasing each other, and it turned into a competitive race, with Girma triumphing by pipping Barega to the line, 7:30.54 to 7:30.66, while Wale was third in 7:30.88.

Additional information by World Athletics.