Spain’s Mohamed Attaoui has his sights set on the world indoor 1000m record on home soil at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Madrid on 6 February.
The mark Attaoui will be looking to break in the Gallur Arena stands to Djibouti’s Ayanleh Souleiman with a 2:14.20 clocking which dates back to Stockholm 2016.
Attaoui is one of the fastest men in history outdoors in the 1000m. The Spaniard clocked 2:12.25 last September to move to third on the world all-time list, just missing Sebastian Coe’s venerable European record of 2:12.18 which had stood since 1981, and Noah Ngeny’s world record of 2:11.96.
Attaoui, who won 800m silver in his breakthrough year at the 2024 European Athletics Championships in Rome, opened his season with a comfortable domestic victory over 1500m in Antequera earlier this month, setting an indoor lifetime best of 3:35.65.
Ahead of his record attempt, Attaoui will race over 800m for the first time this season at the Millrose Games in New York on Sunday where he will face a high-calibre field including 2019 world champion Donavan Brazier from the United States, Ireland’s world fourth-placer Cian McPhillips and Bryce Hoppel who set a world indoor 2000m best of 4:48.79 in Boston on Saturday.
The Gallur Arena has played host to a glut of world records in recent years. Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas set a world indoor triple jump record in this arena in 2020 with 15.43m while Grant Holloway broke the world indoor 60m hurdles record with 7.29 on this track in 2021.