Geordie Beamish wants New Zealand to host World Indoor Champs

After sweeping to 1500m gold in Glasgow the Kiwi runner suggests his country could bid to stage the global event

After passing seven athletes on the final lap of the world indoor 1500m final to win gold in 3:36.54, Geordie Beamish no doubt walked off the Emirates Arena track believing anything is possible. So how about New Zealand hosting the World Indoor Championships despite not having a 200m indoor track?

“Now World Athletics has called it ‘short track’,” he says, “I feel like we could host one in New Zealand!”

After the weekend we put together here (New Zealand placed third on the medals table in Glasgow with two golds and two silvers), I think we’d have a good argument for staging a championship down there.”

New Zealand has plenty of beautiful grass tracks and synthetic outdoor tracks but no indoor track. But the new concept of a ‘short track’ championship opens the scope for racing to take place on a 200m track with banked bends which is outdoors.

If it sounds a little unbelievable then so was Beamish’s sprint for victory on Sunday (March 3) in Glasgow. He began his late charge with lots of work to do and was still in only fifth coming off the final bend, but he beat US duo Cole Hocker (3:36.69) and Hobbs Kessler (3:36.72) to the line as Issac Nader of Portugal was fourth, last year’s world bronze medallist Narve Nordas of Norway fifth, Adel Mechaal of Spain sixth and defending champion Samuel Tefera of Ethiopia seventh.

Such is Beamish’s finishing ability, until the recent Millrose Games he had not been passed by a rival in the final 200m of any race since 2019. It only happened at Millrose because he miscounted his laps, too, as he started his finishing surge too early before realising he had an extra 200m circuit to go.

He says he barely practises speedwork either in his On Athletics Club training group under coach Dathan Ritzenhein that emphasises endurance workouts.

“We do zero percent sprinting,” he said when asked if he practises his finishing flourish in training. “We do strides and 200s in 25-26 seconds but it’s never top end.

“I think I just have a knack for doing it. Hopefully I’ll be remembered for not just winning but the way I win.”

As for later this year, the 27-year-old says he doesn’t have an Olympic qualifying time yet for 1500m so could be poised to stick with the 3000m steeplechase, which he ran in Budapest last summer, finishing fifth in the world.

It proved an eventful championships for the host nation’s metric milers, but not in a good way. Callum Elson pulled up in the rounds with an injury that turned out to be a partially torn Achilles. His team-mate Adam Fogg was tripped in the first few metres of his heat but was hastily reinstated to the final, although he did not look or feel quite himself as he rumbled around in 3:43.81 in 14th.

Looking a shadow of the runner who clocked a 3:49 mile at the Millrose Games last month, Fogg suggested that at least he’d gained some valuable lessons on his GB track debut.

The Brits fared better in the women’s 1500m as Georgia Bell finished a fine fourth and Revee Walcott-Nolan sixth in a race won in dominant fashion by Freweyni Hailu of Ethiopia in 4:01.46.

US duo Nikki Hiltz and Emily Mackay took silver and bronze as Bell – one of the breakthrough British athletes of this season – chased them home in fourth in 4:03.47.

Walcott-Nolan struggled to get into her stride and spent crucial sections of the race having to run wide but she clocked 4:04.60 and goes into spring training with a solid indoor season behind her.

Bell said: “It is a bit disappointing to come so close to the medals and just miss out. I was also just off a PB too. I thought the race would at least be fast enough to be pulled around to an Olympic qualifying time, but we were about a second out.”

Bell added that if you asked her three months ago if she would make the world indoor final and she would have struggled to believe it was possible.

Walcott-Nolan said: “I don’t go too well on the bends because I am so tall so I found that quite difficult. It is mixed feelings. I definitely had my sights set on a medal.”

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