Reigning Olympic and European 100m champion Marcell Jacobs from Italy will open his indoor season at the Orlen Cup in Lodz, a World Indoor Tour Bronze meeting, on 4 February.
Jacobs won at this meeting twelve months ago in 6.49 en route to gold at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade where he set a European record of 6.41 to win the 60m title.
The Italian is planning another full indoor season culminating at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul from 2-5 March where he will endeavour to defend his title in the 60m.
He is due to face American veteran Mike Rodgers - who beat Jacobs in this meeting two years ago before finishing second last year - and Joris Van Gool from the Netherlands on his season’s opener at the Atlas Arena.
The headline act for local fans in the women’s 60m is Ewa Swoboda who launched her indoor season at this meeting last year by clocking 7.04 in the heats before improving her Polish record to a sensational 7.00 in the final.
Swoboda will go head-to-head with multiple world silver medallist Marie-Josee Ta Lou from the Ivory Coast who lowered the African 100m record to 10.72 last summer.
Strong fields have also been assembled to face Poland’s leading exponents in the pole vault and shot put.
In the pole vault, Piotr Lisek and Pawel Wojciechowski face former world champion Sam Kendricks from the United States while Michal Haratyk and Konrad Bukowiecki take on all three medallists from the European Athletics Championships - Croatia’s Filip Mihaljevic, Serbia’s Armin Sinancevic and Tomas Stanek from the Czech Republic - in the shot put.
Bukowiecki won at last year's meeting with a throw of 21.39m.
This year’s edition of the Orlen Cup will be particularly special for the organisers after the 2021 and 2022 events had to be staged behind closed doors as a response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“This year we are opening up to the fans, we can sell tickets again and invite them to the stands of the Atlas Arena. I hope that, as before the pandemic, they will support athletes in large numbers,” said Lech Leszczyński, president of the Lodz Athletics Association and vice-president of Polish Athletics Federation.
The full European indoor calendar for 2023 can be viewed here.