The first French championship of women's decathlon

It had been announced at the beginning of the year. It took place in Talence during the "Open de France" of Athletics over the week-end of 13-14 July and was a great success. The participation was limited to 12 athletes who had to qualify for the event. All of them finished their decathlon (and even the one athlete who no-heighted in the pole vault went on to complete the remaining two events).

After having won the indoor heptathlon this winter, Noemie Desailly won the decathlon title,  establishing the French U23 record with an excellent performance of 7705 points. She could have done slightly better were it not for a marginal foul close to 40 m in the discus throw and a below-par high jump. Emma Brentel's, 6958 points performance was also better than the previous U23 record.

Seven out of the twelve participants could jump higher than 3 m in the pole vault (with Brentel passing 4.21 m). The weak point of most of them was the discus throw, with only four athletes throwing beyond 30 m, (R. Bidois winning the event with 47.43 m). N. Desailly won four out of the 10 events and, with the proper preparation, she could even threaten the 8150 points national senior record of M. Collonvillé. (It was established 20 years ago, in that crazy order of field events devised by what should have been a misogynist committee, and was the inaugural world record).

M. Collonvillé had offered her support to his women's decathlon from the outset and was present in Talence. You can see her in the photo below. And, if you look carefully, you can see at the extreme right of the photo my friend Frédéric Gousset, of Décapassion, who could not be absent from such an event. He is making the sign of victory and I agree with him that this first national decathlon was a first victory for women, who must still fight in order to reach parity with men. 

The next big appointment is on August 3rd for the first World Championship of women's decathlon. Up to now World Athletics has not taken an official position concerning this event. Let's hope that Sir Sebastian will be more decent than his quintum-removed predecessor S. Edström who first did whatever was possible in order to sabotage women's athletics, and, when that did not work, embraced them and strove to suffocate them.

PS A very detailed article on the french women's decathlon championships, due to my friends of Décapassion, has just appeared. I strongly suggest that you read it. (Use Google translation if you can't read french). It is really great. One learns among others that Mehlich did not foul-out in pole vault: she injured her right hand warming-up for the long jump, threw with her left hand and just could not pole vault. But she went on and finish her decathlon.