Male athletes fall short
Seven Ethiopian athletes have secured wildcard entries for the 2024 World Indoor Athletics Championships, which will take place in Glasgow, Scotland, in a year.
World Athletics (WA) said that seven middle distance runners had qualified for the upcoming championships after the final gold-level meeting of the 2023 World Athletics Indoor Tour in Birmingham.
11 competitors have already secured their spots for the 2024 championships, which will be held from March 1–3, according to WA. Birmingham hosted the final stop on the 2023 World Athletics Indoor Tour last weekend.
Certain countries’ teams will gain an extra edge in specific events with the addition of a third team member. Only two competitors per country and per discipline are chosen for the World Indoor Championships teams. Yet with these additional “wildcard” spots, a third athlete can take part in the competition.
The athlete’s national federation has the final say on whether or not that athlete will compete in the World Indoor Championships.
Freweyni Hailu will attempt to win both the 800 and 3000 meter events, while Lemlem Hailu, Mizan Alem, Gudaf Tsegaye, Diribe Wolteji, Ejgayehu Taye, and Dawit Seyoum have already qualified.
Ethiopia is solely represented in the event by female athletes who excelled at the World Athletics Indoor individual competitions; no male athletes qualified for the championships. Female athletes distinguished themselves at the most recent stop on the indoor tour by clocking in at a new personal best.
At the conclusion of the Gold Series in Birmingham, Gudaf was one of the top performers in the women’s indoor 3000-meter event, finishing second overall in history. She ran the distance in 8:16.69, which was just nine hundredths of a second slower than Genzebe Dibaba’s world indoor record of 8:16.60, which she set in Stockholm in 2014.
Ethiopia’s Mizan Alem, the 2021 world under-20 500-meter champion, came in second with a time of 8:31.20. The outcome was crucial in ensuring the two would participate in the tournament.
Diribe Woletji’s time of 8:33.44 in a 3000-meter race in Val-de-Reuli, France, back in February guaranteed her a place in the championships.
The champions of the 2023 World Indoor Tour will each get a USD 10,000 prize, according to WA’s announcement.
Glasgow, Scotland, will host the best track and field athletes in the world in 2024 after the 2023 event in China was canceled.
