Jamaica’s Danielle Williams enters this week’s World Athletics Indoor Championships 2022 in her best-ever early season form and the Jamaican will be hoping to extend her top-level performances for another week as she targets the women’s 60m hurdles gold medal in Belgrade. The world indoor championships 2022 will take place in the Stark Arena, and will be held from 18-20 March.
Williams will start as the gold medal favorite in the women’s 60m hurdles and her form leading up to the championships support the prediction. Read More: How to watch the World Athletics Indoor Championships 2022?
The 2015 world 100m hurdles champion traveled to Serbia as the world leader in the event with a personal best time of 7.75 seconds, which she set at the Tiger Paw Invitational at Clemson University last month, and the world outdoor championships bronze medalist is aiming to add another global championship title to her collection.
Besides winning the world indoor championships gold medal, Williams will be also targeting the 7.74 seconds national indoor record by Michelle Freeman in 1998.
Although she enters Belgrade 22 as the title favorite, Williams is bracing for the strong challenges that are expected to come from her compatriot Britany Anderson, American Gabriele Cunningham, France’s Cyrena Samba-Mayela, and Devynne Charlton of The Bahamas.
Anderson comes into the meeting as one of Williams’ biggest threats for the gold medal, given that she owns the joint second-fastest time among the entries on this year’s world lists with her personal best of 7.82 seconds. Read more: Jamaica names team for the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Championships
The 21-year-old looked very good in the early rounds of the 100m hurdles at the Tokyo Olympics last summer, but finished a disappointing eighth in the final after smashing into a hurdle and had her form discombobulated.
As usual, the Americans will also be strong in the event and will be led by Tokyo finalist Cunningham, who has also clocked a lifetime best of 7.82 seconds this season. Teammate Alaysha Johnson has also been in good this winter after clocking a PB of 7.90.
Elsewhere, France’s Samba-Mayela, who has a PB of 7.84, will also be aiming to challenge the frontrunners for the title, while Bahamian Olympic finalist Charlton has also broken the 7.80 seconds barrier this season and this shows that she will be among the medal contenders.
