Mondo Duplantis, Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Yaroslava Mahuchikh, three of the world’s finest young athletes, provided the European Athletics Indoor Championships with a golden finale in Torun.

On a night when Olympic heptathlon champion Nafissatou Thiam won the European Athletics indoor pentathlon title in Torun, Jakob Ingebrigtsen had gold taken out of his hands after being disqualified following the 1500 metres final, only to have the title returned on appeal.

Dobromir Karamarinov, Interim President of European Athletics, has hailed the return to action represented by his organisation's 36^th Indoor Championships, speaking a few hours before competition got underway in the Polish city of Torun.

European Athletics will stage the first multi-discipline championships in the sport since the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic when the 36^th edition of its Indoor Championships start at the Torun Arena in Poland tomorrow.

Armand Duplantis, who began this troubled season with two pole vault world records, will end it with the additional distinction of producing a world-best clearance outdoors as he achieved 6.15 metres at tonight’s penultimate Diamond League meeting in Rome.

Timothy Cheruiyot and Jakob Ingebrigtsen - the respective world and European 1500 metres champions - will resume their intense rivalry at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Stockholm tomorrow following their epic race at the opening of the series in Monaco eight days ago.

Uganda’s 23-year-old Joshua Cheptegei, world 10,000 metres champion and world cross country champion last year, added another indelible achievement to his CV in Monaco tonight as he marked the opening Wanda Diamond League meeting of the season with a world 5,000m record of 12min 35.36sec.

Karsten Warholm achieved his mission at the Impossible Games in Oslo tonight as, running alone in a largely empty stadium – but watched worldwide via a live TV link – he marked the sport’s first big break-out from coronavirus lockdown with a world best for the 300 metres hurdles of 33.78sec.

The largest and most significant athletics meeting of the pandemic-blighted year will take place with Oslo’s Bislett Stadium at its centre tomorrow night – the self-styled Impossible Games – with another similar event, the Inspiration Games, based in Zurich set to take place on July 9.

The Ingebrigtsen brothers’ ambition of successfully defending the men’s under-20 and senior titles at the European Athletics Cross Country Championships in Lisbon today were only half fulfilled.

Filip and Jakob Ingebrigtsen will defend their respective men's senior and under-20 titles tomorrow at the European Cross Country Championships in Lisbon.

With all three of the big names in the men’s 400 metres hurdles winning their opening heats, the main focus on the opening day of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships here fell upon the opening heat of the men’s 5,000m, which saw Guinea-Bissau’s Braima Suncar Dabo stop running to assist a stricken opponent, 33-year-old Jonathan Busby of Aruba, in finishing.

Apart from forecasting rain in Sandnes last weekend it was also possible to foresee a squall of family rows as a number of small, excited boys left the Extra supermarket with arms signed by the store’s illustrious sporting regulars - the Ingebrigtsen brothers.

The main part of a sell-out 14,200 crowd in Oslo tonight saw half their dream come true tonight when home runner Karsten Warholm won the men’s 400 metres hurdles in a European record of 47.33sec.

Cool and wet conditions are expected for tomorrow’s Bislett Games in Oslo – the fifth of this season’s International Association of Athletics Federations Diamond League meetings – but home athletes such as Karsten Warholm and the Ingebrigtsen brothers will be guaranteed to raise the temperature.