Götzis 2012: Talking to Brent Newdick and Roland Schwarzl (0)

Unfortunate Brent Newdick and Roland Schwarzl had to end their participation earlier in Götzis.

A few days earlier in the week they were willing to have a short conversation about the multi event.

Brent  went to 8114 points in 2011, he is 27. Roland Schwarzl his best performance dates from 2004 when he surpassed the 8100 border with 2 points, he’s 31. Both are in the decathlon  top 5 of their country and Roland is  national record holder for the heptathlon as well. We asked them a few questions.

Brent, Roland why decathlon?

Brent: I always loved sport and I have been trying every event in athletics. My parents always encouraged me.

Roland: I didn’t had special encouragement to do sports. I loved the hurdles and I have a good pole vault. In fact I did everything on my own. After a while I even had to travel 20 km to visit the sports arena, but it was worth it.

Do you like other sports?

Brent: I played a lot of other sports to, like rugby, cricket. And touch rugby.  This one can be a real challenge.

Roland: As many decathletes we probably tried many things, I played soccer and was a basket player for a few years.

Are you appreciated for what you do in your country?

Roland: there is certainly respect for what we do in Austria. We have a history of good decathletes and Götzis is certainly an important place on earth for decathlon.

Brent: the more that people get to understand the sport, the more it gets valuated, it’s a question of understanding it.  So its growing. There have been some good decathletes in my country  to. There is also support  of many decathletes of the past. My couch Douglas Pirini who was a decathlete himself is really a source of encouragement to me.

Roland: I will continue doing decathlon if I stay healthy. It’s always a bit of experimenting. Each year you try to adjust things. It’s difficult getting close to the boundaries, the limitations of your body not hurting yourself. The knee’s and ankles really have to endure pressure. (His Bench, Squat and Clean: 125kg; 200kg; 130kg.)

Brent: in the past two years I focused on jumping, I tried this year to train more evenly.

Who’s the greatest decathlete ever?

Both: there have been good athlete’s out there like Daley Thompson and  Tomas Dvorak but also mentally Roman is special, he fights all the way.

Who will win in London?

We’ll have to wait and see, Trey Hardee and Ashton Eaton are multi talents and what will Clay do?