The 2016 IAAF World Indoor Tour will get underway in just over a week with the Karlsruhe indoor meeting in Germany set to raise the curtain on this new series on Saturday 6 February.
The four meetings in this year’s tour will all be staged during a two-week period in February and are:
- Karlsruhe indoor meeting (Karlsruhe, GER), Saturday 6 February
- New Balance Indoor Grand Prix (Boston, USA), Sunday 14 February
- Globen Galan (Stockholm, SWE), Wednesday 17 February
- Glasgow Indoor Grand Prix (Glasgow, GBR), Saturday 20 February
The tour will have half of the individual indoor championship disciplines as tour events each year across a two-year period and contains several innovative features.
“The creation of the IAAF World Indoor Tour marks an exciting new way forward for international indoor athletics,” commented the IAAF President [link id=”811″ tax=”post_tag” text=”Sebastian Coe”].
“With the overall event winners gaining US$20,000 and a wild card for the next edition of the IAAF World Indoor Championships, we are offering an increased incentive to our top stars to participate indoors.”
“The World Indoor Tour partners the IAAF with four existing, world renowned and successful meetings in Europe and America, who with us are passionate and committed to growing the popularity and profile of indoor athletics,” he added.
New Series
The 2016 tour winners will be eligible to compete at the IAAF World Indoor Championships [link id=”671″ tax=”category” text=”Portland 2016″] although, as always, their IAAF Member Federation will have the ultimate authority over whether to enter an athlete for this IAAF World Athletics Series event, or not.
Many reigning world champions, both indoors and out, have committed to participating in each of the four meetings of the IAAF World Indoor Tour .
Among the many stars set to go through their paces in Karlsruhe are: Renaud Lavillenie, Shawn Barber, Raphael Holsdeppe and Dafne Schippers.
The 2016 tour will come to an end in Glasgow two weeks later and Great Britain’s trio of London 2012 Olympic Games and IAAF World Championships [link id=”520″ tax=”category” text=”Beijing 2015″] winners Mo Farah, Greg Rutherford and Jessica Ennis-Hill are sure to get a rousing reception on home soil.
Full details of the structure of the tour (which replaces the IAAF Indoor Permit series), including which events will be eligible for ranking points and prize money in 2016 and 2017, are available here.
