The great duel of the double round
Just over two weeks to fill the Gallur track in Madrid with the best athletics in the world in the final of the World Indoor Tour Gold Madrid, which will be held on February 28. This competition will bring us a new duel between two of the best Spanish XNUMX m runners: Óscar Husillos and Iñaki Cañal.
Óscar Husillos and Iñaki Cañal, both members of the 4x400m long relay team, which has given us so much joy and was an Olympian in Paris 2024, are two benchmarks in the 400 m at national level. Husillos is a double national indoor record holder, both in 400 m ST (45.58 in Madrid) and 200 m ST (20.68 in Valencia). In addition, he holds the best Spanish 300 m mark (both ST and AL) with 32.39 achieved on the indoor track in Salamanca in 2018, as well as the second best national mark in history in 400 m outdoors with 44.73, achieved on the Moratalaz track in Madrid. His record well supports these marks with various international medals, both individual and with the 4x400 m relay. He made his debut on the podium at continental level in 2018 with a bronze at the 2018 European Championships in Berlin with the 4x400m team. A year later, he won two silver medals (400m and 4x400m) at the European Indoor Championships in Glasgow and, in the following edition of this same championship, he managed to improve this result by being crowned European champion of the 400m indoors in Toruń2021. At national level, he is one of the athletes with the most titles, having been Spanish champion of the 400m outdoors up to seven times and indoors six times.
For his part, Cañal has the second best Spanish record in history in the indoor 400 m (45.89), only surpassed by Husillos himself. In addition, his best record outdoors (45.27) is the seventh best ever and his mark of 1:01.41 in 500 m (2021) is the fourth best in history. He knows what it is like to stand on a world podium, he did so on the second step to collect his silver medal achieved with the 4x400 m relay at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade three years ago. Outdoors he has not yet made his debut on an international podium, but he has also been, with the long relay, fourth in Europe (Munich 2022) and fifth (Rome 2024), in this last championship sharing a team with Husillos.
The Spanish record for the 400m Short Track will be two years old in just eight days. On February 19, 2023, at the Spanish ST National Championships on the Gallur track, there was a lot of running. Óscar Husillos and Iñaki Cañal delighted us with a real race, in which both stopped the clock below the previous record of David Canal (45.93), which dated back to 2005 (also in Madrid) and would have been 18 years old the following day.
This was not the last time they faced each other and thrilled the public. At the last Spanish Outdoor Championship held in La Nucía, Husillos arrived as the reigning champion, while Cañal was the national leader of the year. In the semi-finals, Husillos snatched that lead in the national ranking and, finally, he also won the final, successfully defending his title. However, the 15 duels they have had outdoors could not have been closer, with Cañal emerging victorious in eight of them, compared to Husillos' seven. Indoors, things are different, having faced each other directly on just three occasions, with two victories for Husillos versus one for Cañal.
The World Indoor Tour Gold Madrid will be the great prelude to the European Short Track Championships in Apeldoorn at the beginning of March, as well as a great opportunity to see the best national and world athletes compete in a world-class meeting. Will we see another Spanish record broken in Gallur like two years ago?
Don't miss the indoor athletics festival at this unique event in Madrid. For more information about the event and ticket sales, visit our website: madridindoorathletics.es