Amazing Kevin (1)

Since the retirement of Ashton Eaton, Kevin Mayer seems to be - the World’s best decathlete. Nobody knows what Damian Warner has in store, since there is no news of him since his decathlon participation in Götzis this year in May. Warner is leading this year with 8795 points.

Kevin Mayer always searching for perfection in technic has this year been doing one personal record after another. His personal-best-total amounts now to 9341 points – what shows an incredible high potential – higher than that of European record holder Roman Šebrle with 9328 points.

It’s impossible for a multi eventer to give each year the absolute highest attention to every event. “This year it’s the long jump, pole vault and 1500m,” Mayer told the French L’Equipe (probably the best sports newspaper in the world) in an interview.

“In the long jump, I still have work to do – especially  the approach to the board! In London, although assured of the world title I would have liked a good time in the 1500, my time was frustrating.”

Note: his time in Rio 2016 was 4.25,49 against London 2017 4.36,73. (With a time of 4.24,59 he would have moved from sixth to fifth decathlete all time.)

He gained some muscle weight. Many still report his weight at 77 kg. In fact his competition weight is now about 83 kg and Mayer has not sacrificed any of his speed or power! Kevin has been training in Doha and Miami as well as at home in Montpellier. There has been a serious improvement in the hurdles last year. Kevin changed also to seven strides to the first hurdle.

The indoor world championships in Birmingham was just a stepping stone on the road to the European in Berlin. The world decathlon record of 9045 points? “Clearly it’s on my mind, But winning is now the first thing to do”.

Missing a world record?

Kevin Mayer came to do 6 events in Ratingen earlier this year, 3 on each day of the weekend. Here are the results

Kevin Mayer second from left Ratingen 2018

No lets speculate a little bit. A French journalist told me that if he did a decathlon here at Ratingen he probably could have done the world record, presuming that he did personal bests in the other 4 events. You never know – that’s true, but! He was in an awesome shape. No question about that. He ‘s third try for example in the discus was an amazing 52.38! For the rest he stayed very close to his bests (except his 5.60 indoor pole vault from this winter) so that we can put some facts in a row. 9045 minus 5569 is 3476 points needed (plus 1) to break the record, meaning 3477 points. So we will take his best results as well as what he did last year and the year before:

5569 + 3591 = 9160 (Ratingen 2018 6 events + 4 PB)

5569 + 3388 = 8957 (Ratingen 2018 6 events + 4 Olympic Games)

5569 + 3349 = 8918 (Ratingen 2018 6 events + 4 World Champs)

Conclusion if amazing Kevin continued, he almost certain  did an 8900+ decathlon to become the fourth decathlete in history. On the other hand, if he could have performed close to his PB total for the remaining 4 events, he probably could have put a world record on the scoring tables in Ratingen. Interesting detail, Kevin can certainly break the second day record from Dave Johnson (4455 points). We hope to see him doing this at the European championships.

Chris Vlamynck for Decathlon 2000