Usually I start with the report on track events followed by the field ones and combined events come last. This time I am starting with the latter because I have greatly appreciated the fight of two great champions for supremacy. It was not easy. But let us start at the beginning.
The natural favourite for the decathlon was D. Warner. and he started the competition in great shape with 10.27 s in the 100 m followed by 7.87 m in the long jump and an excellent, for him, 14.99 in the shot put. In the latter event he managed to beat K. Mayer who started with acceptable performances 10.62 s and 7.54 m but then threw a below par 14.98 m in the shot put, one cm behind Warner. The new talent I was going to watch, following the advice of the Décapassion authors, was A. Owens-Delerme. He threw 14.97 m, i.e. one cm less than Mayer, after having registered 10.52 s and 7.64 m. The high jump was uneventful. Both Warner and Mayer jumped 2.05 m while Owens-Delerme bowed out after 2.02 m. P. LePage was also into contention having obtained 10.39 s, 7.54 m, 14.83 and 1.99 m.
And then disaster struck: halfway through the 400 m Warner grabbed his thigh and dropped out of the race. The cards were going to be reshuffled. and to complicate the situation Owens-Delerme ran a 45.07 s, the second best time ever in a decathlon (after Eaton's 45.00) and Puerto-Rican record grabbing the first place in the classification with 4606 points.
He was followed by LePage with 4485, Ziemek with 4469, Garland with 4413 and Moloney with 4378. Mayer could do no better than 6th with 4372 points and was followed by Skotheim (the 20-year old norwegian who had won the high jump with 2.17 m) and Victor with 4331 and 4326 points respectively. The reigning champion N. Kaul was trailing at the 16 place with 4147 points.
At that point the tv commentators went crazy and starting talking about the possible victory of Owens-Delerme. Having seen an outsider win in 2019 (Kaul) they believed that a surprise victory was possible. But of course that was because they simply ignored the basic truth that the decathlon is won only after the 1500 m is over. Be that as it may, the second day started in a very special mood. Owens-Delerme remained in first place after the 110 m hurdles having run in 13.88 s but LePage got closer after a 13.78 s result. Mayer remained in the game with 13.92 s. The victim here was Moloney who got injured and while he could participate in the discus he had to drop out of the competition after that.
LePage increased his advance over Mayer and in fact moved to first place after a personal best of 53.26 m in the discus. Mayer threw a so-so 49.44 m while Owens-Delerme disappointed the tv people throwing just 42.36 m. At that point LePage was first with 6427, Owens-Delerme second with 6309, Ziemek third with 6221, Mayer fourth with 6216 points and Victor fifth with 6127. And, fed up by the commentators' speculation, I decided to make a simulation assuming "no disasters" over the remaining events. The result was without appeal: Mayer first, LePage second, Ziemek third and Owens-Delerme fourth.
Speaking of disasters, one was barely avoided by Mayer: he passed the opening height of 5 m in pole vault at his third try. But once that was over, he found his rhythm finishing with 5.40 m. Ziemek jumped the same height and LePage with 5.00 m kept the first place in the ranking. Owens-Delerme had already slipped down to fourth position after obtaining 4.50 m. And the game was over at the next event. Mayer threw a humongous 70.31 m at the javelin (beating even Kaul who obtained "just" 69.74 m). For Ziemek, who threw a 62.18 m personal best, and LePage, who could do no better 57.52 m, any hope for gold medal disappeared. Victor, throwing 66.20 m, moved to fourth place while Owens-Delerme moved down to sixth due to his 50.98 performance. Meanwhile Kaul had moved up to seventh position.
Both Owens-Delerme and Kaul were going to more upwards after the 1500 m. They ran a sizzling race, with different tactics, Owens-Delerme starting fast and Kaul catching up at the end, obtaining 4:13.02 and 4:13.81 respectively allowing them to move to fourth and sixth respectively. Mayer, going into the 1500 m with more than 100 points of advance, did not have to make any special effort. He ran at a respectable pace finishing in 4:41.44, still ahead of LePage (4:42.77) and Ziemek (4:44.97) who obtained silver and bronze. Victor, with his 4:47.22 performance, moved one place down. So the first six were: Mayer 8816, LePage 8701, Ziemek 8676, Owens-Delerme 8532, Victor 8474 and Kaul 8434. Uibo could do no better than seventh with 8425 points.
Mayer became world champion for the second time in his career (after 2017) and did this in a masterful way. I am curious to see what he can do in the Europeans at the end of August where the stress will not be the same. After all the second european (Kaul) finished almost 400 points behind. Owens-Delerme, putting aside the rant of the tv people, is a great talent. He has to improve the technical events, discus, pole vault and javelin, but once the latter are mastered, 9000 points will be a reasonable objective for him. I will keep an eye on him over the next years. Out of the remaining young athletes the one I am going to look out for is L. Neugebauer. I believe that he is the future (together with Kaul, of course) of the german decathlon school.
Thiam's quest for a second world title was less gripping than that of Mayer. But the double olympic champion had still to show her grit at the end of the event. She started with a personal best of 13.23 s in the 100 m hurdles and followed it with a 1.95 m high jump and a 15.03 m in the shot put. A. Vetter did even better in the latter with 16.25 m, allowing her to move to second place after her 13.30 s and 1.80 m performances in the preceding events. The reigning world champion K. Johnson-Thompson was present but her presence was a very discreet one: with 13.55 s, 1.83 m, 12.92 m and 23.62 s she was sixth at the end of the first day. N. Thiam, ran the 200 m in 24.39 s and was first, with a good 60 points over Vetter (who ran in 23.73 s). A. Hall moved to third place just 20 points behind Vetter thanks to her excellent 23.08 in the 200 m. World indoor pentathlon gold and silver medalists Vidts and Sulek were following in the reverse order, while olympic bronze medalist E. Oosterwegel was seventh.
The beginning of the second day was uneventful with Thiam jumping 6.59 m in the long jump, Vetter close behind with a 6.52 m personal best and Hall 6.39 m. Sulek moved temporarily to third thanks to a 6.52 m jump and Oosterwegel slipped to eighth jumping a disappointing 5.95 m. K. Johnson-Thompson was seventh at that stage. She would lose one place due to her meagre 39.18 m in the javelin and could not improve it in the 800 m. Meanwhile Oosterwegel threw and excellent 54.03 m but it was too late and despite her 2:13.97 in the 800 m she could finish only seventh. But the battle was elsewhere. Thiam is a 59+ javelin thrower but has been plagued by elbow injuries these last years. So she had a, still excellent throw, at 53.01 m and, given that after the long jump she had more than 80 points over Vetter, the gold medal appeared decided. But Vetter decided to trouble the water and she threw a huge 58.29 m (which, in fact, is not even her personal best, as she had thrown 59.81 this year in Götzis). And so she entered the last event 19 points ahead of Thiam. Last year, in the Olympics, Vetter was 64 points behind Thiam after the javelin and she did not make any attempt at closing the difference but ran prudently so as to consolidate her silver medal position. One could expect something different this year but now it was Thiam's turn. And she showed that she is indeed a great champion. Although she is not a fan of the 800 m she ran a personal best of 2:13.00 winning in the end 6947 to Vetter's 6867 (who could do only 2:20.09 in the 800 m). A. Hall won the 800 m in 2:06.67 ahead of Sulek (2:07.18) and Vidts (2:08.50) finishing respectively third, fourth and fifth in the final classification with 6755, 6672 and 6559 points.
One athlete I was looking forward to follow during the championships was US decathlete G. Scantling. He had the world leading score this year with 8867 points, obtained when he won the US championships in May. But Scantling was absent from Eugene. No reason was initially given but the news did slowly filter. Scantling got suspended "for a potential tampering violation that stems from Scantling's conduct during an investigation into his third potential whereabouts failure". I am sure T. Tygart, the CEO of USADA, will explain to everybody that Scantling is a victim, that the real culprits are the Russian, and require harsher sanctions for the latter.
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