The winner of the 60m hurdles, Jakub Szymanski, won Poland's first gold medal in eight years at the World Indoor Championships. He did it at his home world championship in Toruń.
Szymanski entered the 2026 Indoor World Championships on a winning streak in the 60m hurdles. The Pole is undefeated at this distance since the start of the 2026 season, which began in mid-January at the Luxembourg Games.
The Pole began his World Indoor Championships competition with a qualification, where he became the leader in his heat with a time of 7.50 seconds. Szymanski also crossed the finish line first in the semi-final and qualified for the decisive heat.
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In the final, Szymanski won with a time of 7.40 seconds. The Pole was ahead of his closest pursuer, Spaniard Enrique López, by 0.02 seconds. Instead, the fight for the “bronze” was fought over by American Trey Cunningham and Jamaican Demario Prince, who finished with the same time, 0.01 seconds later than the silver medalist. In the end, the “bronze” was won by the representative of the USA.
“This is the best day of my life. I saved all my energy, all my strength from the last World Indoor Championships in Nanjing. I saved it for this year and now, thanks to the fans, the people in the arena, my family, the coaches, I did it. What else can I say – I will remember this day in the coming years. This is the happiest day, the start of my life,” Szymanski shared his emotions exclusively for Suspilne Sport .
“[What's the difference between this World Cup and last year?] I had some difficulties. I think I've grown since then and I'm a different person now, with different thoughts and attitude. I've never been so strong in my career and now I'm looking forward to the next starts, especially the 110m hurdles in the summer,” added the Pole.
Szymanski's victory at the 2026 World Indoor Championships is the athlete's first medal at this tournament. Thanks to it, the Pole combined victories from two winter tournaments, also winning at Euro 2025 in Apeldoorn. In addition, Szymanski extended his winning streak since the beginning of the season to eight.
“My goal was a national record, as I thought I would need around 7.35-7.37 seconds to win, but major championship finals are a different matter. I've run times in the 7.40 range on multiple occasions, so the main thing was just to keep my nerves,” Szymanski was quoted as saying by World Athletics.
“I predicted Cunningham would have problems. The only surprise was the Spaniard finishing ahead of him. Last year I was devastated to miss the [World Indoor Championships] final in Nanjing, where the medals were ultimately won with a very slow time.” The winner of the 60 m hurdles at the 2025 World Indoor Championships was American Grant Holloway with a time of 7.42 seconds. And for the “silver” Frenchman Wilhelm Belotsian, 7.54 seconds were enough, while the time 0.01 seconds later brought the “bronze” to Chinese Liu Junxi. . Now the burden was lifted from my shoulders. I thought about taking revenge for this defeat every day and every night, and now I did it. I worked hard on myself to survive what happened then. Records can be broken at any time, but winning gold is something special,” the Pole added.
Szymanski's gold medal is Poland's first in eight years. Before that, in 2018, the country's representatives last won – then the “gold” was won by 800-meter runner Adam Kszczot and the 4×400-meter relay team.