World champions-clash between American Chase Ealey and Portugal’s Auriol Dongmo will highlight the women’s shot put contest in Madrid, at the sixth World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold 2023 meeting on 22 February.
The women’s shot put will have one of the highest quality fields at CDM Gallur – besides Ealey and Dongmo, Canada’s Commonwealth Games champion Sarah Mitton and Netherlands’ European champion Jessica Schilder will seek a decisive triumph in Madrid since it will be the final shot put contest of the World Indoor Tour 2023.
At 28, Chase Ealey became a world-class thrower in 2022 as she surpassed the 20 meter-barrier for the first time in her life to secure the silver medal at the World Athletics Indoor Championsh and tie the American indoor record with 20.21m.
Outdoors, Ealey threw further than 20 meters in seven more competitions. At the US World Championship Trials, she set a world lead and personal best of 20.51m, then she went to win the world title on home soil becoming the first American woman in history to do it.
After winning the European indoor title in 2021, Portugal’s Auriol Dongmo went a step further in 2022. In Belgrade, the 32-year-old claimed the gold medal while breaking the Portugal outright record with 20.43m. Outdoors, Dongmo finished in fifth place at the World Athletics Championship final and secured the silver medal at the European Championship with a personal best of 19.82m.
Dongmo has started the 2023 indoor campaign in good shape, as she took the triumph at the INIT Indoor Meeting in Karlsruhe, the first World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold 2023 meet.
Reigning European champion and world indoor and outdoor bronze medalist Jessica Schilder of the Netherlands will defy Ealey and Dongmo in Madrid, as Commonwealth Games champion Sarah Mitton of Canada will do too.
Swedish and Spanish record-holders Fanny Roos and Belén Toimil, Germany’s Julia Ritter and Great Britain’s Sophie McKinna will complete a top-class line-up on 22 February.