He’s coming to Götzis! (0)

Andrei Krauchanka, Eelco Sintnicolaas, Leonel Suarez, Ashton Eaton are a few names for the coming hypo meeting in Götzis. Hans van Alphen is injured. It seems Krauchanka is back after two years of injuries that affected his performances. He won at the first meeting of the 2013 IAAF Combined Events Challenge held in the Luigi Ridolfi Stadium in Florence. And broke, with a world-leading score of 8390 points, the meeting record held by Czech Republic’s Jiri Ryba (8339 in 2000). According to an IAAF article he said: “I had a very good competition in Florence but I haven’t made any big plans for this season with my coach, I expect to return to the top next year.”

Hopefully  Leonel Suarez is recovered from the tendinitis in his take-off leg (from during the High Jump in London). Suarez trained all other nine events and said he uses his left leg now as the take-off leg in the long jump. In  2012 he showed surprising high-blood pressure signs affecting his training, but he recovered and won a second Olympic bronze medal. In March he married Yesenia Villareal, the Mexican record-holder in the Long Jump and Triple Jump.

Also the world’s leading pole vaulting decathlete Eelco Sintnicolaas is coming to Götzis. The man has the national decathlon record with 8506 and broke this winter the national heptathlon record (twice passing the 6300 points) to become with 6372 one of the best nine heptathletes in the world.

This way he overcame his big disappointment at the London Olympics last summer. “He wasn’t relaxed” he explains “trying  to improve at everything, trying to do everything perfect” but ahead of the European Indoor Championships he changed he’s attitude and “tried even during the competition a brownie”. He felt he was in great shape, lighter than ever and the difference in approach paid off.

He’s best pole vault  is 5.52, but not in decathlon. “To me, the pole vault is a feel event,” says Sintnicolaas, to Spikes magazine. “I just run with the pole, bend it, and the main goal for me is to be in the right position at the right time, and for the pole to give me some energy back.”

He’s goal is the World Championships in Moscow where he likes to end in the top five, and will fight for a medal. If the US multi-event star can be stopped? “Let’s try to get as close to him as we can, beating him might take a miracle!”

The fourth athlete mentioned above is a certain Ashton Eaton, have you heard of him? Some say he’s a prehistoric monster who eats records for breakfast. But he is also twenty-first century smart and studied psychology. He’s a reader and I saw the science fiction characters at his home in the little movie he made, which I liked a lot, and asked myself (as a combination of the two) if he read Asimov’s foundation series.

Accomplishing so many things in this early stage of his life left a hollow feeling after the Olympics. The world heptathlon record with a huge margin, decathlon world record and an Olympic gold medal, and now? After the Olympics he took a three-month break from training and started again in November, saving himself for the outdoor season.

Two things pushed him in the right direction. A book he was reading at the time said “competition is pretty much the essence of everything, it gives humans drive”. Then he saw the impressive results from European and American heptathletes and it motivated him.

Eaton believes he can improve in every event and we all know that his best years even still have to come. This year he improved his shot put, 400 meters and javelin throw. Although Dan O’Brien still has the world record considering the sum of PB’s in decathlon, it’s not true for the sum of PB’s of the decathlon and three PB’s of the heptathlon. This year Ashton surpassed O’Brien. Have a look at the following table:

*Deca = Pb points for 10 decathlon events; Hepta =Pb points for 60 meters +60 meters hurdles + 1 km

“I’d like to score 9,000 again,” Eaton said. Well it seems that this won’t be a problem. Eaton is probably the only men that will do several 9000+ decathlons in his lifetime. How many? Nobody knows, but honestly I wouldn’t be surprised to see him doing it five times at least (plus a few 8900’s). And there’s more! Ashton broke his personal record for the 200 meters this year. Until now the best time for a 8000+ decathlete belonged to Daley Thompson  (20.88/+1.9/1979) which is replaced now by Eaton’s 20.76/+1.8. The 200 meters is an event included in the outdoors pentathlon.  The world record pentathlon outdoors  belongs to Bill Toomey. The order of events is like this, Long Jump, Javelin, 200 m, Discus, 1500 m. Toomey did an impressive 4282 points on the 16th of august 1969. In the following table there’s a comparison of Toomey’s record and his pb’s and the pb’s from Ashton Eaton.

It’s strange but a few athletes like Clay and Sebrle could have attacked this record but nobody ‘s trying. In fact Ashton Eaton has the potential to be the only world record holder in Decathlon, heptathlon, pentathlon indoors as well as outdoors and even Icosathlon or double decathlon. How high can he get one day? The world record holder doesn’t exclude the possibility of 9200 points or even 9300! Meaning there’s no danger coming from other athletes ? Not at all - at least three athletes are concerned as a real threat. This are obviously Trey Hardee, Canadian super talented Damian Warner and Leonel Suarez  he said to an American newspaper. Nevertheless for many people the speculation has started. It’s typical human and sometimes it’s amusing to read the assumptions.

I give you two assumptions from the internet. One for Eaton doing 9500 and one for 10.000 points. The 9500 has to be performed like this: 9500: 10.25  815  15.55  214  46.3  /  13.50  48.50  540  68.00  4.15.00. To do 10.000 is not easy but try it that way: 10.000: 10.15  8.40  16.00  2.16  45.6  13.20  55.00  5.50  72.15  4:10. What did you say Ashton? 11.000? No problem, I’ll have a look on the internet for you. Sorry I didn’t find anything but anyway: Aim high!

Media attention and an anecdote:

In London a columnist informs Eaton that Bolt has just declared himself the greatest athlete of all-time. Eaton’s reaction: “There’s no fight, Usain is clearly awesome in his own right. He’s an icon of the sport and whatever. I think that titles are for, I don’t know, books and stuff. I just like doing what I’m doing.” Later Bolt is asked the same question: who’s a better athlete, him or Eaton? “Well, I’ m a great athlete,” Bolt reply’s. “But ten events, especially the 1,500 … I’ve got to give it to him.”

Kevin!

Since there is no list available for Götzis in this early stage, we don’t know if Kevin Mayer is coming but here’s proof of great shape this winter. As you can see, he and Gunnar Nixon broke a world age record in the heptathlon.