TV Guide: Time for the world (indoors) to bow to Keelyocentrism

On the old market square of the Polish city of Torún stands a statue of Nicolaus Copernicus, its most famous son. Almost five centuries ago, he developed his theory of heliocentrism, arguing that everything orbits the Sun. Some have made a similar argument about events in Torún this weekend, suggesting the world revolves around one star. We call this Keelyocentrism.

Last month, Keely Hodgkinson smashed the indoor 800m world record, set 24 years earlier on the day she was born. It made Hodgkinson, Olympic champion at the distance, the hot favourite to win the World Indoor title today (BBC Two, 6.53pm). However, she is not the only star in the Team GB firmament. Georgia Hunter Bell, the Olympic bronze-medal winner at 1,500m, and Jemma Reekie, who took 800m silver at the 2024 world indoors, have a good chance at 1,500m half an hour earlier, while at 4.45pm Molly Caudery hopes to regain the pole vault title she won two years ago.

Nine years into its sponsorship of the League Cup and I’m still not sure what a Carabao is without googling. I thought it was a type of elk, the sort Rory McIlroy announced this week that he is going to serve at his Masters dinner, but instead it is Thailand’s second most popular energy drink. Things were simpler when the competition was sponsored by the Milk Marketing Board and we all said “Exactly” while reciting the “Accrington Stanley, who are they?” advert.

Liverpool won the first three Milk Cup finals from 1982 to 1984 and they have the overall record of 10 titles, two ahead of Manchester City, who hope to close the gap today (ITV1, 4.30pm). Their opponents are Arsenal, who have won it twice, most recently in 1993. Accrington have never got past the third round.

Arsenal and Liverpool were the only English clubs to progress to the quarter-finals of the Champions League this week. There are three at that stage in the women’s competition. At least one will reach the semi-finals since Arsenal play Chelsea (Tuesday, BBC Two, 8pm). Manchester United meet Bayern Munich in the other half (Wednesday, Disney+, 8pm).

Qualifying for the men’s World Cup resumes on Thursday with Wales hosting Bosnia-Herzegovina, while Northern Ireland travel to Bergamo to face Italy (BBC iPlayer, 7.45pm). The winners meet in a final play-off on 31 March. If you want something more exotic, New Caledonia, a Pacific island with a population the size of Derby’s, hope to follow old Caledonia into the World Cup finals. They play Jamaica in an inter-continental play-off (Friday, Fifa+, 3am). The winners face DR Congo, who were last in the World Cup in 1974 when they were called Zaire.

Photography by Michael Steele/Getty Images