Top five Africans to watch out for at this year’s World Indoor Championships in Glasgow

Deji Ogeyingbo wrote this piece on the top five African athletes to watch out for at the World Indoor Championships. The World Indoors is in Glasgow, Scotland, from March 1-3, 2024. 

Deji will be covering the World Champs for World Athletics and RunBlogRun in Glasgow. 

Top five Africans to watch out for at this year’s World Indoor Championships in Glasgow

Africa is not known for its dominant indoor performance primarily because of its lack of races and circuits. However, the continent isn’t short of the quality of athletes it brings to the fore.

For the first time in its history, Ethiopia topped the medals table at the last World Indoors in Belgrade, Serbia taking home four Gold, three Silver, and two Bronze. Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda were the only countries featured on the medals table last time.

This year’s World Indoor Championships will take place in Glasgow, and Africa will look to improve. Here are the top African stories to watch out for in the Scottish Capital.

Gudaf Tsegay is set to make history in Glasgow.

It’s hard to see a scenario where Gudaf Tsegay does not win the women’s 3000m title in Glasgow. Considering that her country, Ethiopia, has won nine of the last 10 titles over the distance at the championships, the world indoor 1500m champion and outdoor 10,000m champion will look to keep that streak running.

The newly minted world record holder in the outdoor 5000m will have the opportunity to win another indoor title in Glasgow, but also a chance to break Genzebe Dibaba’s world indoor record of 8:16.60. As always, she came close to taking it down in Leivin earlier in the month when she ran 8:17.11.

Also, if Tsegay triumphs in Glasgow, it would mean she has won four global titles across four different distances across the space of two years.

Ese Brume returns to her first hunting ground.

Ese Brume is a very consistent performer in the women’s Long Jump. The Nigerian, who boasts of an Olympic bronze, world outdoor and indoor silver, and world outdoor bronze, has a knack for coming big at major championships despite not churning out big performances before them.

That has been her special point, and Glasgow offers her a chance to add to her collection of medals, perhaps her first gold medal.

Without Romania’s Alina Rotaru-Kottmann pushing her down to fourth place in the final round, she would…