"VAN" (Sports Desk - 24.01.2026) :: International track and field action is back with a bang on Saturday (24) as Boston hosts the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix – the first World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting of the year. A programme loaded with world and Olympic champions ensures there’s nothing tentative about the start of the 2026 indoor campaign.
Many athletes will be using this weekend – or, indeed, other meetings on the World Indoor Tour – as a stepping stone towards the World Athletics Indoor Championships Kujawy Pomorze 26 in two months' time.
Other athletes will use Boston as a launch pad for their season as a whole which, for some, will culminate with the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest in September. And for many, Boston offers an early and uncompromising test of winter form.
One of the most intriguing contests of the day comes in the final discipline of the programme, where four athletes who have each won global gold at different disciplines converge in the men’s 300m.
Olympic 100m gold medallist and four-time world 200m champion Noah Lyles lines up against 2022 world indoor 400m champion Jereem Richards, 2016 world indoor 60m champion Trayvon Bromell and multiple global relay gold medallist Vernon Norwood.
Lyles, who won the 60m at this meeting last year, will be opening his season this weekend. His indoor 300m PB stands at 31.87, which stood as the world indoor best back when he set that time in 2017. Richards, meanwhile, holds the meeting record of 32.10.
The world short track best now stands at 31.56, but there’s genuine reason to believe that mark could be tested on Saturday.
The men’s 600m brings together a trio with serious 800m pedigree. 2019 world champion Donavan Brazier, who returned to PB form last year after a long spell of injury troubles, will be seeking another victory in Boston, having set meeting records here over 800m in 2021 and 600m in 2020.
Bryce Hoppel, the 2024 world indoor champion, adds further depth to a field that also includes Cian McPhillips, who set an outdoor Irish record of 1:42.15 when finishing fourth at last year’s World Championships.
The world short track best of 1:12.84 was set just last month by Josh Hoey, who will be in action elsewhere in Boston – but the clock may again be under threat. Hoey, the world indoor 800m champion, steps back to his specialist discipline, having shown tremendous form last month over 600m and in the road mile with his 3:54.77 Honolulu victory.
Cr-World Athletics
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