In just over a fortnight, the spotlight will fall on Serbia’s Ivana Spanovic, the defending long jump gold medallist, as her country hosts the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade.
And after a big weekend, she is heading to her home competition in just the place she would want to be as the world No. 1 after a superb opening to her season.
At the ISTAF Indoor meeting in Berlin on Friday night, Spanovic, 26, won with a leap of 6.87m to beat German pair Claudia Salman-Rath (6.76m) and Alexandra Webster (6.71m) in a long jump of the highest standard.
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The performances are now the first, second and fifth best respectively in the world after Lorraine Ugen won the British trials with 6.72m on Sunday to stake her claim for a medal in Belgrade on a list where American Shakeelah Saunders (6.73) is third.
But Spanovic, who triumphed in Prague in 2015 with 6.94m and then won the European outdoor title in Amsterdam with 6.98m last summer, already has that edge on the rest.
And as equally important as the world lead was the technical side as she cleared 6.87m on two occasions, in the fourth and fifth rounds, looking fluid and sharp, particularly with the power she took from her legs as she set off down the runway.
Britain’s Andrew Pozzi started the weekend as the world leader over 60m hurdler and he ended it in the same spot and with the national title to his name.
Pozzi repeated his 2017 best of 7.44 by running that time again in the heats in Sheffield before winning the final in 7.51.
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The European junior silver medallist from 2011 is very much the clear favourite for European indoor gold and he said: “I am really happy with the times I have put together today and now the main aim is to try and win the championships in Belgrade.
“I have the quick times under my belt, so it’s about reproducing that type of form come the championships.”
The defending European 60m champion is Britain’s Richard Kilty but he will now be sweating on selection after being disqualified in the final for a false start, having the run the fastest time in qualifying (6.62).
But Andrew Robertson delivered one of the best runs of his career to win gold at these European trials in 6.57 from Theo Etienne (6.59) and Dwain Chambers (6.62).
“It was a tricky field out there for that final; obviously everyone has been on their game too, so the only thing I could do was make sure I controlled myself and delivered what I needed to,” said Robertson, speaking to British Athletics, after the joint second best time in Europe this year. “My confidence is high and I feel like I’m in a good place too, so hopefully there’s a lot more to come. The aim for European Indoors is to win it. I don’t want to make the numbers up.”
in Torun on Friday, European leader Joanna Jozwik strengthened her claims for gold in Belgrade as she broke the 18-year-old Polish indoor 800m record with victory at the Copernicus Cup in 1:59.29 by over two seconds from Iceland’s Anita Hinriksdottir (2:01.56).
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At the Dutch championships in Apeldoorn, heptathlete Nadine Visser was left delighted as she smashed the eight-second barrier for the first time to win the 60m hurdles title in 7.98 from Sharona Bakker (8.10) as the 60m crown went the way of Naomi Sedney (7.28).
And in Kiev, Maryna Bekh, an Olympic finalist in Rio, won the long jump at Ukrainian Indoor Cup with 6.63m ahead of Olha Saladukha, a four-times European triple jump champion, who was second with 6.12m.
There are 94 meetings across Europe this week. For all the details, go to www.european-athletics.org/calendar.