Wednesday, 17 February 2021
Britain’s Elliot Giles produced one of the outstanding performances of the 2021 indoor athletics season in winning the 800 metres at Polish venue Torun in 1min 43.63sec, putting him second on the all-time list.
Only Wilson Kipketer, who clocked 1:42.67 in winning the world indoor title in Paris in 1997, has ever run faster indoors, and the 26-year-old from Birmingham has now bettered the British record of 1:44.91 set back in 1983 at Cosford by Sebastian Coe.
Giles, whose outdoor best, set in September last year, is 1:44.68, had indicated his ability to achieve such a time by winning the 800m at the opening World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Karlsruhe in January, and at the Gold meeting in Liévin on February 9, when he clocked