Andre Niklaus took title in Ratingen (0)
Andre Niklaus ended up clear winner of the "DLV-Mehrkampf Meeting" IAAF World Combined Challenge meeting in Ratingen. After the first day, the victory was to be expected, and a day later Niklaus had amassed 8193 points.
With 7556 points Lars Albert was number two in Ratingen. In third place was Kenny Beele (7285).
The result was a bit of a disappointment for German hopes. Except Andre Niklaus, who already had a 8074 points result in Götzis in May, nobody took the chance to jump on the plane to Helsinki.
8050 points is the qualifying mark for the German decathletes, a result which former greats would have laughed at, but the young generation have big problems to meet this level.
Only Niklaus, the U23 European Champion from 2003 came up with a good performance. "I wanted to collect 8100 points, this was my big goal", said the 23-year-old guy after he crossed the finish line in the 1500m race.
After a difficult year in 2004 when he missed the Olympic Games because of an injury, Niklaus has now developed into the number one in the Decathlon in Germany. It was impressive how he managed the Pole Vault (5.30m).
The former World Junior champion Dennis Leyckes had a bad first day and lost too many points even though his result on the second day was quite good for him - but only until the Javelin. On his second attempt he injured his ankle and couldn’t fight for the qualifying mark anymore.
Ratingen 2005 - results