Some of the world’s top track and field stars will be chasing gold medals at the first global championship of the year in this weekend’s 2025 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China. The world indoor championships always have competitive races, but in any given year only a portion of the season’s top athletes opt to participate while most instead choose to focus on the upcoming outdoor season.
From Friday, March 21 to Sunday, March 23, sprinters, hurdlers, middle-distance runners, throwers, and jumpers will square off in 26 events at the Nanjing Sports Training Center. Headlining the three-day meet are two-time Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway, who is will race both the men’s 1500 meters and 3,000 meters, American Grant Holloway, who will put his 76-race win streak on the line in the 60-meter hurdles, and a deep women’s field in the 1500 meters that includes Olympic bronze medalist Georgia Hunter Bell of Great Britain and word record holder Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia.
Here’s everything you need to know, including broadcast information and top storylines, heading into this year’s indoor world championships.
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Super Shoe Trends Peacock (requires a subscription) over six sessions planned for the three-day meet, including most of the finals on Sunday (7:35-9:25 a.m. ET in the U.S.) There will also be a one-hour highlights show broadcast on NBC from 12-1 p.m. ET on Sunday.
What to Watch
Men’s 1500 Meters
Ingebrigtsen is the biggest name in these world championships, with two Olympic gold medals and two world titles under his belt. The 24-year-old Norwegian is aiming to become only the second athlete to pull off double gold medal performances in 1500/3,000 at the indoor world championships. (Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie did it in 1999.) Ingebrigtsen has had a strong indoor season punctuated by a Health - Injuries in the mile (3:45.15) on February 13 in France. (He also lowered the world record in the 1500 meters to 3:29.63 in that race, too.) Although he’s favored to win both events, he’s not really a fan of indoor track, recently telling The Telegraph that the race was “a good start but really it doesn’t matter—running is not an indoor sport.”
However Ingebrigtsen, who has two Olympic gold medals and two outdoor world championship titles to his name, is certainly interested in adding more gold to his collection. He came up just short in the 1500 at the 2022 and 2023 outdoor world championships and last year’s Olympics in Paris. He was also edged out by Ethiopia’s Samuel Tefera in the 1500 meters at the 2022 world indoor championships in Belgrade, Serbia. Tefera, 25, is back at this year’s event by way of being a past champion, but he doesn’t have a seed time after having only raced a 3,000-meter event (7:31.86) so far this season. Although he failed to make the 1500 Olympic final last summer in Paris, he’s a two-time indoor world champion at 1500 meters and the former world record holder, and if he’s in top form, he’ll give Ingebrigtsen a run for his money this year, too.
Women’s 1500 Meters
Five of the 12 competitors from last year’s Olympic final in Paris will be racing the women’s 1500 meters in China, including Bell, who earned the bronze, Diribe Welteji of Ethiopia, who was fourth, and Susan Ejore of Kenya, who was sixth. But the runner to beat seems to be Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay, who wound up last in the Olympic final amid an unprecedented 1500/5,000/10,000 triple in Paris. The 28-year-old is the indoor world record holder (3:53.09) and the third-fastest runner in history outdoors (3:50.30). She blazed a world-leading 3:53.92 effort in Poland on February 16 just three days after losing a 3,000-meter race in which she attempted to break the world record.
Welteji is ranked second entering the championships with her 3:58.89 clocking from a win on February 13 in France, while American Heather MacLean is third after she set a new American record of 3:59.60—en route to running the second-fastest indoor mile 4:17.01 by an American—at a meet on March 2 at Boston University. MacLean finished third in the 1500 (4:06.69) at USATF Indoor Championships on February 23 in New York City behind Nikki Hiltz (4:05.76) and Sinclaire Johnson (4:06.05). Although Hiltz opted not to compete in China, Johnson, 26, and MacLean, 29, who was second in the Wanamaker Mile in February, could be in the mix for the podium along with Agathe Guillemot of France and Salomé Afonso of Portugal, who looked sharp going 1-2 in a slower race at the European championships on March 7 in the Netherlands.
Bell had a breakthrough race with a fourth-place finish at the World Indoor Championships last year in Glasgow and ran 4:00.63 on February 15 in England, but she said illness contributed to a lackluster fourth-place showing at the European Championships. Ejore (4:02:11) and Ethiopia’s Worknesh Mesele (4:02:19) have also run well this winter.
Men’s 800 Meters
It’s hard to believe how far Josh Hoey has come in a year under new Australian coach Justin Rinaldi, but, after a breakthrough indoor season in which he set American records in the indoor 1,000 meters (2:14.48 in January at the Quaker Invitational) and twice in the 800 meters (1:43.24 at the USATF Indoor Championships), he enters in indoor world championships as the top seed in the men’s 800 meters. Hoey was on the upswing last year, but narrowly missed making it to the Paris Olympics after finishing fourth at the U.S. Olympic Trials (1:44.12).
Hoey’s top competition will likely come from Belgium’s Eliott Crestan, Dutch athlete Samuel Chapple, and American teammate Brandon Miller. Crestan, 26, was the bronze medalist at the 2024 World Indoor Championships in Glasgow and owns the fastest outdoor PR (1:42.43) in the field. He’s coming off a national record effort (1:44.69) at the Czech Indoor Gala on February 4 and a silver medal effort (1:44.92) on March 9 at the European Championships, where he was outkicked down the homestretch by the 26-year-old Dutch champion Chapple (1:44.88). Miller, the 2022 NCAA indoor champion at Texas A&M, had a breakthrough outdoor season last summer, finishing fifth in the Paris Olympics after setting a 1:43.73 career best at the U.S. Olympic Trials. He finished second at the USATF Indoor Championships (1:44:26) behind Hoey.
Hoey, 25, has found success this year by running hard from the start and not letting anyone pass him. That strategy could work in China and could lead to a 1-2 U.S. finish if the American runners can regain their sharpness after a month-long gap following the USATF Indoor Championships.
Brian Metzler is a Boulder, Colorado, writer and editor whose work has appeared in Runner’s World, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Outside, Trail Runner, Jakob Ingebrigtsen headlines a host of stars that will be racing this weekend in China, and Red Bulletin. He’s a former walk-on college middle-distance runner who has transitioned to trail running and pack burro racing in Colorado.
