Thompson to debut indoors at Astana meet

ASTANA, Kazakstan (CMC):

Jamaica's Olympic silver medallist Kishane Thompson is set to make his much-anticipated indoor debut on January 25 at the Astana Indoor Meet for the Amin Tuyakov Prizes, the opening event of the 2025 World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold series.

The 23-year-old Thompson, who claimed 100 metres silver at the Paris 2024 Olympics with a blistering 9.79, will compete in the 60m in Kazakhstan. While this will mark his first indoor competition, Thompson boasts a personal best of 6.67 for the distance, achieved outdoors in 2022.

The former Garvey Maceo High School sprinter will face stiff competition in Astana from Canada's Andre De Grasse, the Tokyo Olympics 200m champion, who clocked 6.66 in last year's 60m final at the same meet.

The women's 60m promises to be equally exciting, featuring Jamaican twins Tia and Tina Clayton, alongside compatriot Natasha Morrison and Bahamian standout Anthonique Strachan. The women's 400m will see a clash between Barbados' Sada Williams and Jamaica's Janieve Russell.

The World Athletics Indoor Tour is an annual series of indoor track and field meetings, held since 2016. It was designed to create a Diamond League-style circuit for indoor track and field events, to raise the profile of indoor track and field, and replaced the IAAF Indoor Permit Meetings series.