Armand Duplantis will be among the reigning Olympic champions adding star power to the world indoor championships this weekend when the Chinese city of Nanjing hosts the first major global athletics meet since the Paris Games last year.
The three-day event was originally slated for 2020 and faced multiple postponements due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Nanjing’s Sports Training Center would finally welcome more than 570 athletes for the start of the showpiece today.
One of the main attractions would be pole vaulter “Mondo” Duplantis, who soared 6.27m to break the world record for a staggering 11th time in Clermont-Ferrand last month.
Photo: AP
“I’m super excited,” said the Swede, who impressed fans in China during the two Diamond League meets last year.
Duplantis, who would be gunning for a third straight world indoor title, said that although he does not dwell on how much higher he can go, he would like to scale 6.30m soon.
“Indoors is a great opportunity always to break the world record, because we don’t have to deal with the wind and whatnot, so we have a lot more controlled variables,” the 25-year-old added.
Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen would be going for a 1,500m and 3,000m double on the track — a feat achieved only once at the indoor worlds by Ethiopian great Haile Gebrselassie in 1999.
The Olympic 5,000m champion, fresh off a similar double at the European indoors, said there woud be little room for error.
“People are a little more stressed when it comes to indoors because the track is half the size with usually the same amount of competitors,” the 24-year-old said.
“Many people feel like they have only half as much time to do the things they want to do. That’s the thing that I’m aware of in my approach to indoor races, is that I always try to do things with a little bit extra margin,” he said.
Nanjing is to crown a new world indoor champion with Christian Coleman of the US missing from the men’s 60m sprint, while Italian Zaynab Dosso heads the women’s field after her 7.01-second effort at the Europeans.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
The Minnesota Timberwolves, with so many promising performances spoiled by late mistakes fresh in their memory bank, sure timed this strong finish well. Jaden McDaniels scored a career playoff-high 30 points and spearheaded Minnesota’s stifling defense on an ailing Luka Doncic, and the Timberwolves beat the Los Angeles Lakers 116-104 to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference first-round series in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Friday night. “Jaden never looks tired. He looks like he could play 48 minutes,” said teammate Anthony Edwards, who had 29 points, eight rebounds and eight assists. Julius Randle added 22 points for the Wolves, who outscored
Inter’s defense of their Italian Serie A title was hit with a setback on Sunday as they lost 1-0 at home to AS Roma, while Scott McTominay netted a brace as SSC Napoli beat Torino 2-0 to go top of the table. No fixtures were played on Friday or Saturday because of the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, meaning the full round of Serie A matches took place on Sunday and yesterday. Matias Soule’s first-half strike for Roma knocked Inter off top spot earlier in the day before new Napoli opened up a three-point buffer with victory in Sunday’s
Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa yesterday set a women’s only world record of 2 hours, 15 minutes, 50 seconds as she won the London Marathon, while Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe put a star-studded men’s field to the sword. For 28-year-old Assefa it was ample compensation for finishing runner-up in London and the Paris Olympics last year — especially as bitter Dutch rival, the Ethiopia-born Sifan Hassan, finished third. Assefa dropped Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei as the race, played out in blazing sunshine and with thousands lining the route, entered its business end. She came home almost three minutes clear of the Kenyan. Hassan, who beat her in