Five must-see events from the start of the indoor athletics season: Featuring Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Dina Asher-Smith, Karsten Warholm and Mondo Duplantis

Over the upcoming weeks, many of the greatest athletes in the world will make their 2023 bow as the indoor athletics season gets underway. This year culminates with another World Athletics Championships after a thrilling event in Eugene, Oregon last summer. But before they get to strut their stuff on the track in Budapest, the top athletics stars from across the globe will aim to prove their form and fitness on the World Athletics Indoor Tour.

From reigning Olympic champions and world record holders to athletes testing their limits at unfamiliar distances, here are five events you won’t want to miss over the next month in athletics.

Dina Asher-Smith, Daryll Neita and Marie-Josee Ta Lou race in Karlsruhe, 27 January

Great Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith experienced a stop-start season in 2022, following an injury-blighted year that affected her performances at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. 

However, the 27-year-old former world 200m champion bounced back in style with a bronze medal at the World Championships in Eugene - coming home behind only Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in a field that also included reigning 100m and 200m Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah. 

In Karlsruhe, she takes on a star-studded field over the 60m distance, including Marie-Josee Ta Lou, Malaika Mihambo and fellow Brit Daryll Neita. 

With another World Championships just months away, a strong start to the season for Asher-Smith will have people once again dreaming of just what she is capable of in 2023 as she enters her prime years as a sprinter.

Karsten Warholm and Yaroslava Mahuchikh at the Karsten Warholm Invitational, 2 February 

Watch out for 400m hurdles world record holder and Olympic champion Karsten Warholm who competes in the event that bears his name on 2 February. 

Unusually for Warholm, the Norwegian enters this season with something to prove, after fitness woes left him floundering at last year’s World Athletics Championships. Warholm had won gold in both the 2017 and 2019 Worlds, but he has found new and sturdy competition in Brazil’s Alison Dos Santos, who stormed to victory in Oregon. 

Will he be back to his devastating best this season and regain his world crown? It all starts here. 

As well as the Norwegian speedster, Ukraine’s European high jump champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh and former European shot put champ Michal Haratyk will also take part in the meet in Warholm’s hometown of Ulsteinvik

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone takes on Shericka Jackson at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, 4 February 

In one of the most mouthwatering races at the beginning of the 2023 season, the USA’s Olympic 400m hurdles champion Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone will face off against Jamaica’s world 200m champion Shericka Jackson over 60m at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston. 

McLaughlin-Levrone enters the season having set a new world record in the 400m hurdles at the World Athletics Championships last summer en route to winning the world title. And while talk has turned to her racing the 400m flat this season, a 60m race against one of the world’s best sprinters will be a strong test of her straight-line speed at the beginning of the year. 

For her part, Jackson set the second-fastest women’s 200m time in history when she raced to gold at last year’s Worlds. She is also the reigning Olympic bronze medallist over the 100m distance. 

While the 60m will bring both women out of their comfort zone, a race between the two isn’t as far-fetched as it may seem. Jackson started life as a 400m runner, while McLaughlin-Levrone is expected to transition to 400m flat this season with her time over the hurdles in Oregon (50.68) fast enough to have earned her a place in the final of the standard 400m race at the same championships.

Athing Mu, Noah Lyles and more at the Millrose Games, 11 February 

One of the most anticipated meets over the next month are the Millrose Games, which take place in mid-February in New York City. 

This year’s event will see a high-quality field of athletes compete, including world and Olympic champion Athing Mu who will race in the **600m - a distance in which she holds the second-fastest time in history. **

Will she break the world record this season?

Also headlining the meet, Noah Lyles will have his first run out of the year at 60m having set the fastest 200m time in US  - and third-fastest in global - history at the 2022 Worlds. Lyles will also be aiming for a third world title in a row this summer following his victories in 2019 and 2022. 

The 60m race will also see a number of other leading US athletes race, including Christian Coleman, Ronny Barker and Lyles’ brother Josephus. 

Ryan Crouser, Joe Kovacs, Abby Steiner, Josh Kerr and Sandi Morris are just some of the other stars who are scheduled to compete at the meet.

Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis and Lamont Marcell Jacobs set to light up Lievin, 15 February 

The big guns are out in force for the Leivin indoor athletics meet that takes place on 15 February. Watch out for reigning indoor and outdoor pole vault world record holder Mondo Duplantis, who will be aiming for more trophies this season having won last year’s worlds while setting the latest in a string of all-time bests (6.21m) at the same competition. 

Lamont Marcell Jacobs has suffered a number of injuries since he stunned the world with his 100m victory at Tokyo 2020, with the Italian pulling out of the competition at the World Athetics Championships at the semi-final stage. 

There will be much excitement for his return in 2023 as he once again fights for the title of fastest man in the world.