Our world champion Mutaz Barshim will be the centre of attention when competition at the 7th Asian Indoor Athletics Championships gets under way on Friday at the Aspire Dome in Doha, with the number of participants expected to reach more than 400 male and female athletes representing 37 countries, competing at the most modern athletics facility between 19 and 21 February. Attention will be focused in particular on the Qatari Olympic bronze medallist in the high jump, and this is a rare opportunity for the 24-year-old athlete, who holds the world indoor high jump title, to compete at a high level in front of his home crowd, and things look promising that he hopes to achieve something big at this championship.
Having cleared 2.34m at the Malmo meeting in Sweden last month, Barshim has shown good form as the Asian Championships approach, and indicated that he does not rule out attempting to break his Asian record (2.41m), which he set a year ago, and that even the world indoor record (2.43m), held by Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor for 27 years, could be under threat.
Barshim is an athlete of a rare breed: only one man has ever cleared the high jump bar higher than the Qatari champion has outdoors (2.43m). Indoors, his Asian record places him fourth in the history of the event. Should he win on Friday, Mutaz Barshim will become the first athlete to win this event’s title four times.
Friday will also see another Qatari athlete seeking a similar feat: Samuel Francis, who could win his fourth 60m title after his previous titles in 2008, 2010 and 2014.
The threat to veteran sprinter Francis, who has run 6.70 seconds this season, may come from his own teammate, Tosin Ogunode, who ran 6.50 in 2014 and 6.66 this season. Danger may also come from the Philippines’ Eric Shauwn Cray, who ran 6.60 seconds at the Karlsruhe meeting in Germany on 5 February, and who will be among those leading the challenge against the two home sprinters and their ambitions.
In the 800m, also held on Friday, Qatar’s Musaab Abdulrahman Balla will be among the leading contenders to defend his title. Balla, who finished fifth at the World Championships in Beijing last summer, has run 1:46.79 this season, a time at least three seconds better than any other Asian runner. The final is held on Sunday.
This championship will also see the return of home athletes Mohammed Al Garni, who will defend the two long-distance titles he won two years ago, in two finals against strong opponents from neighbouring Bahrain. In the 1,500m on Saturday, he will compete against Marwan Hbati, while his rival in the 3,000m on Sunday will be Asia’s Albert Rop, the indoor record holder over this distance with a time of 7:38.77.
The rising 400m star Abdalelah Haroun is another Qatari athlete who looks capable of winning a medal. The 19-year-old holds the Asian record in this event both indoors (45.39) and outdoors (44.27), and will face the title holder, Iran’s Mehdi Zamani.
Elsewhere, the Chinese pole vault specialist Huang Bokai, 19, is worth watching, having prepared for the Doha championship by clearing 5.70m to score a surprise win in Ghent, Belgium, on 13 February.
In the shot put, India is looking to win a silver medal through its athletes Om Prakash Singh Karhana and Inderjeet Singh, the title holder and the 2015 Asian champion respectively. Both have personal bests of 20.65m outdoors.
Among the other 2014 champions returning to defend their titles are Kuwait’s Abdulaziz Al Mandeel and Saleh Al Haddad, in the 60m hurdles and long jump. Al Mandeel will take on 2013 Asian 110m hurdles champion Fan Jiang, while Al Haddad faces fellow Chinese athlete Huang Guozhou, whose best mark stands at 8.17m.
Doha also hosted the 2008 edition of this championship at the Aspire Dome, the same venue that hosted the World Indoor Athletics Championships in 2010.
