Combined events at the World Championships 2023

I decided to follow the pattern introduced last year, namely to start my report with the combined events. After all you know that I am a decathlon fan (but much, much less a heptathlon one). 

Last year the first day was dominated by a new talent, A. Owens-Delerme who finished first with 4606 and, in particular, with a blistering 45.07 s in the 400 m. At that point the number one favourite, D. Warner had dropped out and Mayer was trailing at 6th. Things changed on the second day with Mayer finishing at the first place and Owens-Delerme just out of the medals despite a great 4:13.02 1500 m.

This year's decathlon borrowed heavily of last year's one. The first day was dominated by a new talent, L. Neugebauer who managed to do even better than Owens-Delerme with 4640 points (and two great performances in the long jump with 8.00 m and the shot put with 17.04 m). And one of the favourites, none other than the reigning world champion K. Mayer, dropped out just after two events. As for L. Neugebauer, he could do no better than 5th at the end of the second day (he would have finished 2nd with his score of 8836 obtained at the NCAA championships, but a disastrous discus performance pushed him out of the medals).  

L. Neugebauer

P. LePage had a very good first day and managed to stay ahead of D. Warner. The funny thing is the LePage has changed his shot putting style from glide to spin, and, despite his morphology, has perfectly adapted to the new style. I guess that this has to do with the fact that LePage is an excellent discus thrower. By the way, LePage was not the only spinner decathlete. M. Nilsson was also throwing in the rotational style. Apparently this style is gaining in the combined event milieu (although it will probably meet with greater resistance in the heptathlon, where almost none of the athletes is familiar with the discus). At the end of the first day five more contestants have followed Mayer, including 2019 world champion N. Kaul, last years bronze medallist Z. Ziemek and olympic bronze medallist A. Moloney. 

Three more were to drop out after no-heighting in the pole vault. K. Garland with a 5 m pb  exited at 4.50 m and Owens-Delerme with a 4.70 m pb  exiting at 4.40 m. AOD (that's usually how the speakers are referring to him) could have started at 4 m, but, on the other hand, that wouldn't have changed much. He was nursing an injury for quite some time and that was the reason he did not compete a decathlon prior to the World's. So, unfortunately we were not going to see him in the 1500 m. At that point in the competition it was clear that Warner did not stand a chance. LePage was leading and Neugebauer was also ahead of him. 

The decathlon medalists

Victor in the meantime had put himself in a medal trajectory with a huge 54.97 m discus throw and minimised the damages with a 4.80 m jump in the pole vault. He was sitting in 4th ready to pounce, and pounce he did, throwing the javelin at 68.05 m. This moved him to second place while Tilga, thanks to the javelin, came within a breath from Neugebauer. everything from silver downwards, was going to be settled in the 1500 m. Warner and Tilga had a definite advantage while LePage just had to finish in a reasonable time. The question was whether Victor could hold off Tilga. And he did it, finishing just ahead of LePage with Neugebauer trailing the two. In the end the classification was LePage 8909 (next stop 9k), Warner 8804 (still missing the world title), Victor 8756 (his first global medal, unless you count his two Commonwealth gold), Tilda 8681 (a personal best) and Neugebauer 8645 (far from his 8836 from June). I was very glad for Victor: he is somebody I have been following him for years and I must say that I have a soft spot for throwers in decathlon. 

I am also following the two norwegian young decathletes, M. Rooth and S. Skotheim. They finished 8th and 10th respectively, but far from their personal bests of 8608 and 8590 points. But the season has been very long for them, having started with eh European U23 championships (where they obtained gold and silver). Another remarkable point of the competition was that all three estonian decathletes registered a personal best finishing Tilga 4th (8681), Oiglane 6th (8524) and Erm 9th (8424).

I was afraid that the women's heptathlon was going to be underwhelming, in the absence of N. Thiam (injured) and A. Sulek (pregnant). In fact, I was thinking that it was going to be a walk in the park for A. Hall. She had scored 6988 points at the end of May in Götzis where she had five personal bests in the track events, including a fabulous 2:02.97 in the 800 m, and in the jumps. (And do not forget that she is a 5k performer in the indoor pentathlon). Things turned out to be quite different.

It all started well for the US team. Brooks, Hall and Hawkins finished in the first three places in the 100 m hurdles. Then came the high jump and things started falling apart. Hall could be seen slightly limping after each jump and she could not manage a height better than 1.83 m (her personal best being 1.92 m). Still, with a personal best in the shot put and a not-too-bad 200 m, she managed to finish the first day in first place with 3998 points, K. Johnson-Thompson being second with 3905 and C. Hawkins third with 3900. 

That's when we realised that something was not quite right with Hall

But when the second day arrived the situation got worse. Hall jumped a mediocre 6.19 m in the long jumped and KJT with 6.54 m took the lead of the event. Hawkins was still clinging at the third place but she was going to fade to 8th in the two remaining events (but, still, score a personal best of 6366 points). As for T. Brooks, she was out of the competition after fouling out in the long jump. The game changer was the javelin throw. KHT managed to beat hall 46.14 to 44.88 m building a difference of 43 points. And A. Vetter with a huge 59.57 m throw moved to second place, 7 points ahead of Hall. E. Oosterwegel, who is an excellent javelin thrower, could do no better than 54.88 m which meant that she could not entertain any hope for a medal (she was going to finish 5th in the end). 

The three heptathlon medalists

The 43 points of difference between KJT and Hall correspond to a time difference of roughly 3 seconds in the 800 m for performances in the 2:05 range. If Hall wished to beat KJT in the total she had to finish 3 seconds earlier than her in the 800 m. She tried and she ran a great 800 m in 2:04.09. But KJT hanged on and smashed her personal best with 2:05.63. And so in the end Johnson-Thompson obtained the world title with 6740 points while Hall was second with 6720. Vetter is not a great 800 m runner, but she did ran a decent 2:20.49 for 6501 points and the bronze medal, beating Krizsán who despite her strong second day could obtain only 6479 points (fifteen more than Oosterwegel). 

I did not remark any of the other heptathletes except perhaps the french athlete A. Lazraq-Khlass (6179 points in Budapest) whom I had not noticed before, and the dutch heptathlete S. Dokter (6232 points in Budapest, but 6321 in Götzis). The fact that the latter has a national title at just 20 years of age, given the quality of the women combined events in her country make her somebody I will have to follow in the future.