Review: Götzis 2023 (0)
What should you try to do if you won already seven times the decathlon in Götzis? Indeed Damian Warner was hungry for a eighth win last weekend. Götzis is the most prestigious meeting of the year. And Damian won… the first day. Alexandra (Giesinger) – president organizer and very much involved while the meeting is going on, reminded me that the first day counted 24 athletes over 4000 points, something that never happened at Götzis before. The day started with a win in the 100 meters for Pierce LePage and Kendrick Thompson both in 10,28. Warner 1 hundredth of a second behind. 10,29./775/14.92/200/47,76 or 4531 points. Lepage 4513/Ashley Moloney 4497/ Sander Aae Skotheim 4458… Moloney broke the meeting record from Erki Nool (46,53 in 1997) bringing it to 46,46 seconds for the 400 meters.
The second day started with the decathlon world record holder hurdles (Warner 13,36). The sum of Warner’s second day pb’s is over 4400 points. The fight for a good time with Finley Gaio right next to him ended again with a very small difference between the winner and the second one. Warner 13,60, Gaio 13,62. The difference with Lepage is also still small (13,87) but after the discus there’s suddenly a gap of nine points. Warner 46.32 m, Lepage 49.34 m or 6352 points for Warner, 6361 for Lepage. Lepage leader.
Warner jumped 450 and tried 460! xxx on the screen meant 450 was the height that came on his count. Lepage continued to 500 and the gap of 9 points grew to a 139 points (7112/7251).
There was still hope for Damian because on paper he is better than Lepage in the javelin and the 1500. In fact doing his personal bests would have given Warner 1588 points extra. That makes exactly 8700 points after the 1500m run. Adding the pb’s from Lepage (1444) would give 8695 at the end of the day. For the fans of the decathlon nothing was lost. For the fans of Damian Warner all hope was lost after the javelin throw. Lepage started his first throw sending the implement outside of the sector (nobody died or was hurt). But then he threw a personal best of 63.09 m. That is a huge improvement coming from 58.24. Damian threw 59.92 m. The screen showed Lepage 8055. Warner second 7849. A difference of more than 200 points. Now Skotheim was the silent one all that time, but he knew that, if Warner wasn’t doing his best, he could become second! Sanders pb for the 1500 was 4.26,38 but he ran his heart out to a pb of 4.19,38 and became this way the third at the meeting.
Warner said he never thought of giving up and ran his fourth best time ever for 1500 m (4.26,16) and Lepage ran 4.45,75 to win the 15.000 euro for the 8700 points he completed. (Source newspaper Neue am Sonntag).Sander Aae Skotheim managed to put 8590 points on the scoreboard. His birthday is 31 05 2002. That means he was stil 20 in Götzis!.
A few facts:
Sander Aae Skotheim as well as Damian Warner did an age world record. Running, throwing and jumping. All the throws where won by Lindon Victor. In the four running events Sven Roosen managed to become the 9th runner in decathlon history.
See: https://www.decathlon2000.com/4112/top-20-per-group-of-events/ (sum of the four running events)
Jumping: in terms of comparing with pb potential it is the jumps that probably made Warner loose the first place. Long Jump 7.75 instead of 8.28, High Jump 2.00 instead of 2.09 and Pole Vault 4.50 instead of 4.90.
With 10,28 Pierce LePage and Kendrick Thompson have a shared seventh position on the decathlon 100 meters all time list.
See: https://www.decathlon2000.com/861/decathlon-top-10-individual-events7000-points/
A final word about Anna Hall. So many stars but the brightest star in Götzis 2023 was certainly Hall who doing 5 personal bests came only 12 points short of doing 7000 points in the heptathlon.
Here is a fresh women's heptathlon all-time world list