Sprint star competes at the World Indoor Championships Ajla Del Ponte returns to the world stage after years of difficulties

After four years of difficulties and doubts, Ajla Del Ponte is finally returning to the limelight. On Saturday, the athlete from Ticino will compete in the 60m at the World Indoor Championships in Torun.

Keystone-SDA

19.03.2026, 16:00

SDA

"It's a relief," says the athlete from Ticino in an interview with Keystone-SDA. "There were moments of doubt again this winter. I really wondered whether the breakthrough would come. I was frustrated again," says the fifth-placed athlete in the 100 m at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Patience has inevitably become the 29-year-old's credo since 2022. Over the past four years, she has had to deal with a number of physical problems and has also suffered from periods of depression. "But I've always shown resilience," she emphasizes.

And this perseverance finally paid off. In St. Gallen at the Swiss Indoor Championships at the end of February, she improved over the course of the day (7.28 seconds in the preliminary heat, 7.21 in the semi-final, 7.15 seconds in the final) and secured her ticket for the Indoor World Championships in Poland.

"It's a relief after everything that's happened to me in the last four years. And I was able to share it with my parents and my brother, who were there. I was able to show them that I didn't make all these sacrifices for nothing," says the athlete, who is coached by Laurent Meuwly from Fribourg.

Finally free of pain

Finally free of her physical ailments, Ajla Del Ponte is looking forward to being able to run without any worries. "In the second week of our preparation camp at the beginning of December, I noticed that I had no pain in my quadriceps or Achilles tendon," she recalls. "It was almost strange," amuses the Dutchwoman-by-choice, for whom physical pain had almost become part of everyday life. Now she can look to the future without fear. And dream of getting back to the top.

"That gives me mental stability again. At the same time, my stress level has decreased: I no longer have to think about the next scan I need to have. It's the first time in five years that I've been able to prepare without any physical problems," emphasizes the sprinter.

Del Ponte can therefore set herself goals again without having to worry that her physical complaints will prevent her from achieving them. For Torun, the ultimate goal is to beat her season's best time of 7.15. "I hope that I can reach the semi-finals by improving this time," explains the Ticino native, who has the 16th best time of 2026 among the runners competing in the 60m in Torun. "But under 7.10, the competition is enormous," she says, tempering expectations.

A year like 2021 is no longer possible

Will we soon see the 2021 version of Ajla Del Ponte again? "No. It no longer exists," replies the sprinter without hesitation. In 2021, she also became European indoor champion over 60 m in Torun before shining in the summer with fifth place in the Olympic final in Tokyo (10.91) and the Swiss record at the time in La Chaux-de-Fonds (10.90). "I'm not the same person anymore. I've experienced so much since then," she sighs. "I was carefree in 2021. Everything happened to me for the first time, naturally. Everything was so cool, everything was rosy."

Now she is more down-to-earth, she says. "Of course I would like to get back to the level I was at back then, but with a new maturity. I don't know if I will succeed. But my experience makes me a more dangerous opponent."

Long-term goals

The view goes beyond Torun. In 2025, she was already nominated as a substitute runner for the 4x100 m relay team for the World Championships in Tokyo and even took part after a colleague was injured (pre-race out). This year, she wants to compete for the 100 m title at the Swiss Championships in Zurich at the end of July and secure one of the three individual tickets for the European Championships in Birmingham.

But now the focus is on Torun. And the competition on the Vistula in Poland is a good omen. In 2021, the athlete from Ticino secured her ticket for the European Indoor Championships in Torun with a time of 7.15 at the national championships. In 2026, it will be 7.15 again at the indoor championships. A circle may have been completed and a new cycle has begun that should take her all the way to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. "Above all, I need a tailwind," she concludes when asked what she hopes for the rest of her career.

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