Title contenders, Justyna Święty-Ersetic, Anna Kiełbasińska, and Natalia Kaczmarek all advanced to the final of the women’s 400 meters at the 2022 Polish Indoor Championships inside the indoor track and field arena in Torun, on Saturday (5). Read more: How to watch the 2022 Polish Indoor Championships?
Highlighting the first day of action at the championships was the performance of world leader Ewa Swoboda, who made another big announcement with a flashing 6.99 seconds to improve her own Polish 60m record world-leading mark. Read more here: Ewa Swoboda flashes to 6.99 at 2022 Polish Indoor Championships
Back to Święty-Ersetic, Kiełbasińska, and Kaczmarek
The trio enter this weekend’s championship on good form and they easily secured passages into the final of the quarter-mile event with little worries en route to setting up the thriller we’re highly anticipating on Sunday’s second day.
Qualifying the fastest from the four heats on Saturday was Święty-Ersetic, who flirted with her PB when running 51.27 seconds to win the first heat. The multiple global championships medalist is ranked third among the Polish 400m runners this season, but has the quality and experience to a spot on the national team to the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, later this month.
In-form runner Kiełbasińska, who twice set a personal best this season, including the Polish national record with 51.10 seconds in Ostrava, last month, also progressed to the final on Sunday with a solid heat-winning performance of 52.18 seconds.
The 31-year-old who was part of Poland’s European Indoor Championships gold medal 4x400m team in 2019, has won both her races this season after opening up with a 51.92 secs performance in Karlsruhe on 28 Jan.
Making it through to the final as well was Kaczmarek, the mixed relay Olympic champion in Tokyo, last summer, after she eased to 53.23 secs to secure the top spot in the second heat.
Kaczmarek is also having a career season after posting 51.58 in Metz on 12 Feb before improving that mark to 51.15 when finishing second to Dutch star Femke Bol in Torun, on 22 Feb.
In that same race, Kaczmarek finished ahead of Święty-Ersetic, who was third in 51.40.
Meanwhile, the other 400m heat winner on the women’s side at the 2022 Polish Indoor Championships was another global championships medal collector, Iga Baumgart-Witan, who took heat four with a time of 52.89.
The women are battling for individual places on Poland’s 400m team to the 2022 World Indoor Championships to be held 18–20 March 2022.
