Jeff Tesselaar of the Netherlands was having the competition of his life, positioned in second place overnight.

The European Indoor Champion, Sander Skotheim of Norway, was experiencing a tentative decathlon after return from injury, solid, but yet without the standout performances and sharpness which have taken him to over 8900 points.

Instead, the momentum was with the 2019 world champion and 2022 European champion, Niklas Kaul, stalking the men in front of him, and getting closer with every discipline.

110m hurdles

Overnight, the defending European champion Johannes Erm of Estonia withdrew from competition, as did Zsombor Galpal from Hungary. Erm had been in fifth place, so his departure would affect the overall positions.

After a tense high jump for Czechia the previous evening, Vilem Strasky was able to get his decathlon back on track with a good run in the 110m hurdles. His time of 14.47s would have the effect of lifting him from ninth place to fifth place - the gap vacated by Erm - after six events.

Otherwise, the top standings stayed the same.

Neugebauer was the slowest of the leaders, in 14.94s. Kaul ran 14.73s, Tesselaar 14.65s, Skotheim 14.50s.

But the gap between the placings, and between the points, shrunk after the first event of the second day.

Although still in sixth place, Kaul was now only 244 points behind Neugebauer, compared to the 269 points of difference overnight.

The biggest gain was, of course, from Makenson Gletty of France, who dominated the discipline. Gletty hurdled to 14.18s, bringing the Swiss duo of Andrin Huber (14.29s) and Nino Portmann (14.45s) with him.

Gletty stayed in fourth place, but reduced the gap to Skotheim ahead of him, from 59 to 19 points.

After six events.

• 1. Neugebauer (GER) 5340

• 2. Tesselaar (NED) 5304

• 3. Skotheim (NOR) 5293

• 4. Gletty (FRA) 5274

• 5. Strasky (CZE) 5109

• 6. Kaul (GER) 5096

• 7. Portmann (SUI) 5087

• 8. Dester (ITA) 5077

• 9. Roosleht (EST) 5068

• 10. Huber (SUI) 5067

• 11. Pelkmans (NED) 5047

• 12. Tilga (EST) 5035

• 13. Graeber (GER) 5031

• 14. Ferranti (FRA) 4994

• 15. Lillemets (EST) 4978

• 16. Keita (BEL) 4976

• 17. de Greef (NED) 4816

• 18. Uhlin (SWE) 4776

• 19. Benkunskas (LTU) 4757

• 20. Nonnino (ITA) 4659

• 21. Krummenacher (SUI) 4528

• Erm (EST) DNF

• Galpal (HUN) DNF

• Kopecky (CZE) DNF

• Jarvinen (CZE) DNF

Discus

The seventh and eighth events of the decathlon were staggered, the first group of the pole vault beginning before the second group of the discus had finished.

This meant that the discus groups were organised according to pole vault capability, rather than discus capability.

That construction had Niklas Kaul and Jeff Tesselaar participating in the first discus group, and Leo Neugebauer, Makenson Gletty and Sander Skotheim in the second.

Kaul continued his strategy of getting as close as possible to his individual PBs, 48.78m with his first throw, and 48.88m with his final throw, both just a metre or so short of his lifetime best of 49.89m. Tesselaar threw 45.26m.

That shrunk the gap between Kaul, previously in sixth, and Tesselaar, previously in second, to only 133 points, from a gap of 208.

Karel Tilga, in 12^th after the hurdles, improved his prospects with a strong throw of 49.14m.

As the first group began their warm-up for the pole vault, the second group began their preparation for the later stage of the discus discipline.

As anticipated, the championships decathlon best fell quickly, as Neugebauer threw his first disc to 54.31m. That surpassed the previous mark of Mikko Halvari for Finland, in Helsinki in 2010, which was 52.06m.

But championship decathlon bests don’t win titles. As impressive as 54.31m is, it was only 5m or so in front of Kaul.

Neugebauer would of course increase his lead after the event - to some 300 points - but as the second day of the decathlon reached its denouement, the shadow of Kaul behind Neugebauer would get shorter, and shorter, in the final two events.

A strong vault would be critical for Neugebauer, and a strong vault critical for Kaul. They would play that out at very different heights, but neither could risk a misstep.

After seven events:

1. Neugebauer (GER) 6301

2. Tesselaar (NED) 6076

3. Skotheim (NOR) 6023

4. Gletty (FRA) 5971

5. Kaul (GER) 5943

6. Tilga (EST) 5887

7. Roosleht (EST) 5839

8. Strasky (CZE) 5827

9. Pelkmans (NED) 5803

10. Huber (SUI) 5801

11. Portmann (SUI) 5775

12. Lillemets (EST) 5773

13. Graeber (GER) 5766

14. Dester (ITA) 5737

15. Ferranti (FRA) 5643

16. De Greef (NED) 5633

17. Keita (BEL) 5621

18. Benkunskas (LTU) 5556

19. Uhlin (SWE) 5491

20. Nonnino (ITA) 5297

21. Krummenacher (SUI) 5261

Pole vault

The slip-up which neither Neugebauer nor Kaul could afford happened. But the gaffe was not a result of any action of either of the twin world champions.

The competition began smoothly, Nino Portmann enjoying the full attention of the crowd as he made his way through his early heights to equal his lifetime best of 4.40m.

A hiccup for Pelkmans as he no heighted on his opening height of 4.50m, unfortunate for him, but not critical for the top end of the competition.

A raft of clearances then came at 4.60m, then at 4.70m, which was the best for Tesselaar, just one height below his lifetime best.

Then, the trouble started.

Kaul cleared 4.70m in the first group. Neugebauer cleared the same height in the second group, while Makenson Gletty, already clear over 4.60m, passed.

The bar moved onto 4.80m. Or so we thought.

Niklas cleared 4.80m first time in his group. Leo cleared 4.80m first time in his group, as did several others, while Makenson had a failure.

Then, an announcement that the decathletes in Group B - Neugebauer and Gletty’s group - would need to jump again at 4.80m, because the bar hadn’t been moved up from 4.70m.

The error was not noticed within the first few moments of its impact. Rather, seven athletes had taken attempts, some clear and ready to move on, some not yet clear and resetting themselves for further attempts.

The group started again at the real height of 4.80m. Neugebauer was knocked off his rhythm, failing three times in a row at 4.80m. Kaul was clear in the other group, and moving onto 4.90m, undistracted by wayward measurements.

The entire axis of the decathlon pivoted around the tortoise and hare dynamic of Kaul and Neugebauer.

Neugebauer had surged ahead with his strong day one and discus, and the pole vault should have been one of the events which provided insurance against Kaul’s deadly javelin and 1500m.

Kaul was reeling his teammate in, stealthily climbing, from 20^th place to fourth with two to go.

But now the dynamic was interrupted. The first mismeasurement was further compounded by a dispute on the depth of the uprights for Neugebauer and Gletty.

For reasons still being untangled – the mistake on height, or the confusion on uprights - both Neugebauer and Gletty were given a further attempt at 4.80m.

Neugebauer cleared it. Gletty did not, and had passed at 4.70m, leaving him with only 4.60m and a big dent in his medal ambitions.

Fired up, Neugebauer then cleared 4.90m, as did Kaul in the first group. Both champions ended there.

Did the mistake by officials directly cause the reigning world champion to fail his later pole vault clearances, and hand the advantage to Kaul?

Or did they give Neugebauer an extra attempt at a height he might not have otherwise cleared in three attempts?

Did the disruption cost Gletty his chance at a medal?

Away from the drama Skotheim, who had passed at both fake and real 4.80m, cleared 5.00m, not yet quite able to put the heights we would expect between himself and the rest of the field.

And Amadeus Graeber, who had cleared both fake and real 4.80m, had the best vault of all, leaving the rest of the field behind with 5.10m.

After pole vault, the standings appear to show that Neugebauer has increased his lead. But that is merely a function of the movements between Skotheim and Tesselaar.

Niklas Kaul is exactly the same number of points behind Leo Neugebauer as he was after the discus.

And now, the stage belongs to Kaul – and he’s been here before.

After eight events:

1. Neugebauer (GER) 7181

2. Skotheim (NOR) 6933

3. Tesselaar (NED) 6895

4. Kaul (GER) 6823

5. Tilga (EST) 6767

6. Gletty (FRA) 6761

7. Graeber (GER) 6707

8. Roosleht (EST) 6688

9. Lillemets (EST) 6622

10. Huber (SUI) 6591

11. Strasky (CZE) 6587

12. Ferranti (FRA) 6553

13. Keita (BEL) 6531

14. Portmann (SUI) 6506

15. Dester (ITA) 6497

16. De Greef (NED) 6482

17. Uhlin (SWE) 6401

18. Edgaras (LTU) 6316

19. Nonnino (ITA) 6177

20. Krummenacher (SUI) 6171

21. Pelkmans (NED) 5893

The first event of the evening session of European Championships decathlon began with some tense moments for Czechia. Ondrej Kopecky required three attempts on his opening height of 1.84m, and Vilem Strasky three on his equivalent at 1.90m.

Kopecky made it, but it would be as high as he would go, exiting the discipline immediately afterwards with three failures at 1.87m. He would not line up for the 400m, the second athlete lost for Czechia after Tomas Jarvinen’s retiral due to injury. Strasky made his opening height too, but would go only one height further, to 1.93m.

The Germans, all jumping in the same group, put on a show for the audience on the Alexander Stadium, but for very different reasons.

Niklas Kaul moved through his heights majestically, with first time clearances for all but one of his jumps up to and including 2.02m.

Leo Neugebauer and Amadeus Graeber both tested the crowd’s nerves with a series of third time clutch jumps. For Graeber, with the lowest personal best in the team, he delivered third-time clearances at each of 1.96m and 1.99m as he approached his lifetime best of 2.01m. The height of 2.02m was just too far for the 2023 European U23 champion, but his points were well earned.

For Neugebauer, the tension was more stressful. With a best of 2.09m and a season’s best of 2.06m, the world champion danced on the edge of disaster with two failures at 1.96m. He had earlier clearances, so the jeopardy was not about a no-mark, but rather a very early exit in one of his solid events which could have a material effect on his overall standing. The giant German made the height, and just one more, at 1.99m.

After Kaul, along with Makenson Gletty and Luuk Pelkmans, had departed after clearing 2.02m, the field was left with Ferranti, Uhlin and Skotheim.

All three cleared 2.05m. Ferranti stuttered at 2.08m, with Uhlin and Skotheim also going to further attempts.

The cloud of jeopardy floated from its earlier target, Neugebauer, to rest above its new victim, Skotheim. A height of 2.05m for Skotheim would hand back advantage to Neugebauer, Erm and indeed Kaul, none of whom would be relying on the event to gather their most significant collection of points.

The Norwegian began his preparation for his final attempt at 2.08m. He stepped forward, rolling into the recognisable Skotheim shuffle and skip. He curved into the bar, lifted up into his arch…but brought the bar down. A height of 2.05m would be the maximum for Skotheim.

Skotheim moved up into second place but took only 56 points out of the difference there had been between Neugebauer and himself before the event.

Niklas Kaul’s hunt continued. From 20^th, to 17^th, to 12^th, to ninth after high jump.

• 1. Neugebauer (GER) 3613

• 2. Skotheim (NOR) 3488

• 3. Tesselaar (NED) 3457

• 4. Gletty (FRA) 3420

• 5. Erm (EST) 3376

• 6. Pelkmans (NED) 3341

• 7. Tilga (EST) 3333

• 8. Strasky (CZE) 3307

• 9. Kaul (GER) 3304

• 10. Dester (ITA) 3291

• 11. Roosleht (EST) 3267

• 12. Portmann (SUI) 3264

• 13. Graeber (GER( 3256

• 14. Lillemets (EST) 3234

• 15. Huber (SUI) 3226

• 16, Ferranti (FRA) 3211

• 17. Keita (BEL) 3196

• 18. Benkunskas (LTU) 3111

• 19. De Greef (NED) 3111

• 20. Uhlin (SWE) 3074

• 21. Galpal (HUN) 3008

• 22. Kopecky (CZE) 2986

• 23. Nonnino (ITA) 2935

• 24. Krummenacher (SUI) 2862

400m

As the first day of decathlon rolled to an end around a lap of the stadium, two men were having the decathlon of their lives.

One was breaking lifetime best after lifetime best, bringing every facet of his extrovert energy to entertain the Birmingham audience, glowing in neon orange every time the camera landed on him.

The other was efficiently carving out one of the best day one decathlon result series of his career in the background, delicately shaping the curve of his ascent to follow close to his personal bests.

Jeff Tesselaar should have started dropping down the leaderboard after his early sprint and jump. But a perfectly timed heave of the shot over 15m and a breathtaking 400m run kept him in second place, ahead of athletes with much better decathlon lifetime bests.

And at the end of day one, the part-sculpted decathlon sat ready for Niklas Kaul to add the final flourishes of his second day specialities. Poised in sixth place, so much higher than the German would usually come to rest after five events.

Tesselaar ran 47.06s in the final heat of the 400m, the fastest time overall. Rasmus Roosleht (47.84s PB), Dario Dester (47.96s), and Dai Keita (47.97s PB) also had sub 48 second runs. Kaul’s 47.99s, run in exactly the same measured way in which he runs his 1500m, placed him fifth fastest overall.

Of the leaders, Skotheim ran the best time with 48.31s, with Neugebauer in the second half of the field with 48.81s.

Tesselaar moved back into second place. Neugebauer retained his lead, but with only 71 points to the Dutch man and a further 30 back to Skotheim.

Gletty and Erm retained their positions in fourth and fifth.

And Niklas Kaul, the 2022 champion who won that competition woth nerves of steel on the second day, glided ominously into sixth place.

After five events:

1. Neugebauer (GER) 4483

2. Tesselaar (NED) 4412

3. Skotheim (NOR) 4382

4. Gletty (FRA) 4323

5. Erm (EST) 4282

6. Kaul (GER) 4214

7. Dester (ITA) 4202

8. Pelkmans (NED) 4194

9. Strasky (CZE) 4194

10. Tilga (EST) 4190

11. Roosleht (EST) 4184

12. Portmann (SUI) 4170

13. Graeber (GER) 4150

14. Huber (SUI) 4130

15. Ferranti (FRA) 4130

16. Keita (BEL) 4107

17. Lillemets (EST) 4084

18. De Greef (NED) 3937

19. Uhlin (SWE) 3930

20. Benkunskas (LTU) 3912

21. Galpal (HUN) 3899

22. Nonnino (ITA) 3828

23. Krummenacher (SUI) 3663

24. Kopecky (CZE) DNF

25. Jarvinen (CZE) DNF

And the second major athletics championships in the United Kingdom in as many weeks brought some VIP weather for decathletes, substituting the damp air and rainclouds of Glasgow for blue skies and 25-degree sunshine.

Kaul won this event at home in Munich in 2022, in a thrilling showdown with Simon Ehammer of Switzerland.

This year, Ehammer chose to compete in the individual long jump, since the timetable prevented him from doing both events (going straight from the long jump final into the decathlon without any recovery time). He was rewarded last night with the silver medal, after leading the competition early on.

Kaul passed on his 2022 title to Johannes Erm of Estonia in 2024 in Rome, who himself had a keen competition with Sander Skotheim of Norway. With a PB score of 8764, Erm came within sight of Erki Nool’s longstanding national record of 8815 points. Absent from that competition was the 2025 world champion, Leo Neugebauer, who was still deep in his NCAA commitments. Those commitments delivered a score of 8961, breaking Jurgen Hingsen’s ancient German record. Skotheim would join the German over 8900 points the following year in Götzis.

So the big three – Neugebauer, Skotheim and Erm – meet for the first time in a European championships. Among them only Neugebauer has completed a decathlon this year, scoring 8730 behind Ehammer in Götzis, and 8573 to win in Ratingen. Skotheim aborted the indoor season for surgery, recovering well but with an additional niggle in Götzis towards which he exercised caution and withdrew from competition. Erm has competed in only individual events this year, with modest but promising results.

100m

With no season’s performance to inform seeding, the defending champion Erm found himself in the slowest heat, but with 10.88s he ran faster than both the world champion Neugebauer (10.90s), and Skotheim (10.95s) did in the later heats.

Although Kaul is always in the slowest heat of the competition, and on occasion dead last after the first event, it’s always worth checking just how fast he has run. Every little point counts in the decathlon, and Kaul got a good haul on this occasion, with a season’s best of 11.23s, only just over a tenth outside his PB. That’s faster than he ran when winning the world title in 2019, and faster than he ran when finishing fourth in Tokyo in 2025.

Nino Portmann is no stranger to the top of the leaderboard in the first few events of the decathlon, but this is the first time the Swiss has done so at a major international championships, running 10.69s to get the competition started. Portmann has been consistently close to breaking 8000 points this year, 7930 at Multistars in April, 7982 at the Swiss championships in June and 7947 in Poland in July.

After one event:

• 1.Nino Portmann (SUI) 931

• 2.Jeff Tesselaar (NED) 917

• 3.Amadeus Graeber (GER) 908

• 4.Makenson Gletty (FRA) 906

• 5.Tomas Jarvinen (CZE) 901

• 6.Dario Dester (ITA) 897

• 7.Vilem Strasky (CZE) 888

• 8.Johannes Erm (EST) 888

• 9.Leo Neugebauer (GER) 883

• 10.Dai Keita (BEL) 883

• 11.Rasmus Roosleht (EST) 881

• 12.Sander Skotheim (NOR) 872

• 13.Zsombor Galpal (HUN) 870

• 14.Andrin Huber (SUI) 865

• 15.Risto Lillemets (EST) 841

• 16.Jip de Greef (NED) 834

• 17.Alberto Nonnino (ITA) 825

• 18.Ondrej Kopecky (CZE) 814

• 19.Karel Tilga (EST) 812

• 20.Niklas Kaul (GER) 810

• 21.Edgaras Benkunskas (LTU) 801

• 22.Emil Uhlin (SWE) 801

• 23.Luuk Pelkmans (NED) 799

• 24.Leon Krummenacher (SUI) 782

• 25. Antoine Ferranti (FRA) 780

Long jump

Notwithstanding the otherwise good conditions, blustery and unpredictable wind affected the long jump. Some like Neugebauer and Erm had -2.0+ gusts blowing head on into their big jumps, others were luckier with neutral or slightly favourable winds.

Even with no Ehammer to throw big shapes in the long jump pit, the field had two athletes who had previously jumped eight metres, Neugebauer and Skotheim.

They both jumped well, with little sign of Skotheim’s Götzis niggle in his performance. That bodes well for his signature event, the high jump, later on in the evening session.

The German and the Norwegian jumped 7.82m and 7.80m respectively, which took them from ninth and twelfth place after the first event to first and third after two.

Jeff Tesselaar of the Netherlands, the second fastest in the 100m with 10.75s, continued to provide the filling for the first and third place overall score sandwich. The Dutchman is almost as good a long jumper as the big names around him, 7.76m at his best, and went to 7.67m in Birmingham.

Vilem Strasky of Czechia enjoyed the only lifetime best of the discipline (and the first one from anyone thus far in the competition) with 7.54m.

Johannes Erm continued what appears to be a well-timed recovery from injury to jump 7.49m, the fifth best performance overall.

Niklas Kaul had another decent event, with 7.22m. He has a best of 7.44m but is much more typically to be found in the 7.20-7.30m region. That moved the German from twentieth to seventeenth.

Unfortunately the Götzis Rookie of the year, Tomas Jarvinen of Czechia, withdrew from the competition with injury.

After two events:

• 1.Leo Neugebauer (GER) 1898

• 2.Jeff Tesselaar (NED) 1894

• 3.Sander Skotheim (NOR) 1882

• 4.Nino Portmann (SUI) 1849

• 5.Vilem Strasky (CZE) 1833

• 6. Johannes Erm (EST) 1820

• 7. Amadeus Graeber (GER) 1777

• 8. Dai Keita (BEL) 1776

• 9. Makenson Gletty (FRA) 1768

• 10. Tomas Jarvinen (CZE) 1758

• 11. Dario Dester (ITA) 1739

• 12. Luuk Pelkmans (NED) 1719

• 13. Andrin Huber (SUI) 1693

• 14. Karel Tilga (EST) 1693

• 15. Antoine Ferranti (FRA) 1688

• 16. Rasmus Roosleht (EST) 1683

• 17. Niklas Kaul (GER) 1676

• 18. Jip de Greef (NED) 1652

• 19. Ondrej Kopecky (CZE) 1652

• 20. Risto Lillemets (EST) 1648

• 21. Alberto Nonnino (ITA) 1617

• 22. Edgaras Benkunskas (LTU) 1591

• 23. Zsombor Galpal (HUN) 1558

• 24. Emil Uhlin (SWE) 1549

• 25. Leon Krummenacher (SUI) 1479

Shot

Into the shot and Leo Neugebauer relieved Pascal Behrenbruch of his championship decathlon shot record (16.89m) with a throw of 17.13m. It may not be the first of the heavy throw records to be pulverized this week either. The championships decathlon discus best is only 52.06m.

Beyond Neugebauer, the athletes one would expect to have big throws over 15m, had big throws over 15m: Rasmus Roosleht of Estonia with 15.88m and Makenson Gletty of France with 15.65m.

Next was Risto Lillemets of Estonia, who has improved his shot PB this season to 15.81m, and continued his strong 15m plus form with 15.47m.

The current suite of top-class Dutch decathletes comes from two training groups, the Fox fighters (coached by Ingmar “Fox” himself) based in the Netherlands, and the “Petros’ Dojo” contingent based in Illinois, coached by Petros Kyprioanou (who also has world outdoor and indoor bronze medallists, Ayden Owens-Delerme and Heath Baldwin respectively, in his squad).

Tesselaar (and the injured Sven Roosen) are in the former, the European U20 silver medallist Luuk Pelkmans and Jip de Greef the latter.

Pelkmans has a curiously good shot for an athlete in his first senior year, throwing 15.16m (he has a PB of 15.70m). But behind him, Jeff Tesselaar brought the biggest surprise of the decathlon so far – a 50cm PB of 15.11m in the third event.

That kept Tesselaar in second with a more significant gap to Skotheim than we might otherwise have expected – 52 points.

However, the next event is Skotheim’s piece de resistance, the high jump in which he can leap 2.21m at his best. With the injury he has been carrying, his season’s best this year is only 2.08m – of course good enough to be at the top end of a decathlon high jump field, but way short of the vertiginous heights which provide an injection of energy to his decathlon towards the end of the first day.

There are other good jumpers in the field to help push him. Jarvinen won’t bring that challenge, unfortunately, but Antoine Ferranti of France has cleared 2.12m this year and Pelkmans 2.09m.

Niklas Kaul is now lurking in 12^th place, rising from 20^th after the 100m and 17^th after the long jump. A good rule of thumb is if Niklas Kaul is in the top ten at the end of day one, he’s probably going to get you on day two. Kaul’s chase is well underway.

After three:

• 1. Neugebauer (GER) 2819

• 2. Tesselaar (NED) 2690

• 3. Skotheim (NOR) 2638

• 4. Gletty (FRA) 2598

• 5.Erm (EST) 2582

• 6. Portmann (SUI) 2577

• 7. Strasky (CZE) 2567

• 8. Roosleht (EST) 2527

• 9. Pelkmans (NED) 2519

• 10. Tilga (EST) 2511

• 11. Dester (ITA) 2497

• 12 Kaul (GER) 2482

• 13. Lillemets (EST) 2467

• 14. Graeber (GER) 2462

• 15. Huber (SUI) 2459

• 16. Keita (BEL) 2429

• 17. Benkunskas (LTU) 2371

• 18. Ferranti (FRA) 2361

• 19. De Greef (NED) 2344

• 20. Kopecky (CZE) 2325

• 21. Galpal (HUN) 2321

• 22. Uhlin (SWE) 2224

• 23. Nonnino (ITA) 2195

• 24. Krummenacher (SUI) 2175

• 25. Jarvinen (CZE) DNF

The email was the latest offering from the Zeus Files, the excellent Olympic sports Substack platform established by Duncan Mackay.

The articles always provide a thought-provoking read, whether they be examining politic manoeuvres in the Olympic movement or delving into a curiosity of sporting history.

On this occasion, the subject matter was the 100-year anniversary of the decision to allow women to compete in athletics in the Olympics, specifically “it was decided to include in the programme of the 1928 Olympic Games, events in athletics sports reserved for women.”

The narrative of the article guides us through some familiar milestones. The “rogue Olympics” organised defiantly by Alice Milliat in the 1920s. The infamous “wretched women” reference later that decade, which would lead to the 800m being dropped from the women’s Olympic programme for another 30 years. And of course, the iconic scenes of Joan Benoit winning the inaugural Olympic marathon for women in 1984.

The piece concludes with the celebration that men and women can now compete in an equal number of events at the Olympics in track and field, noting the 3000m steeplechase as one of the final events to be added to ensure women could finally compete in the same disciplines as men.

Worth celebrating? Absolutely. Can women now compete in the same events as men? Not quite.

There’s one further landmark yet to be reached. In 2026, decathlon is the only track and field discipline where women cannot compete at global championships, the sole remaining inequity.

And so our modern-day Alice Milliats, in the shape of female decathletes, have again organised their own “rogue” world championships.

The Women’s World Decathlon championships

The Women’s World Decathlon championships were established by female decathletes for female decathletes because, in their own words, they were “done waiting for permission” – from World Athletics, from the IOC and everyone else – to give them the opportunity to compete in decathlon. So they organised their own championships.

The first edition of the championships, in 2024, was purposely scheduled to coincide with the Olympic decathlon, shining a light on the ten-event-shaped hole in the women’s Olympic track and field programme.

This third edition takes place in a week which coincides with (as reminded by our friends at the Zeus Files) the 100-year anniversary of the vote to permit women to participate in Olympic track and field at all.

Although the competition is not within the World Athletics championships ecosystem – the rogue element - the competition is on the WA calendar and ranked as a category F meeting.

That means it operates to WA rules, and the results will be official and recognised. The only caveat is that the results cannot (yet) be used towards female combined eventers’ ranking, since decathlon is not considered a “similar event” for the purpose of contributing to a heptathlon ranking.

The primary purpose of the competition is, of course, to provide a stage for the best decathletes in the world to compete against each other.

But these championships are also deliberately inclusive in the way that they build a competitive field, with one eye on the current top decathletes, and another on the top decathletes of the future.

Inclusive qualification

Traditional athletics championships qualification routes, by way of a single standard or ranking, don’t work here. The lack of opportunity for women to participate in the event means that it can be challenging for them to even generate decathlon scores.

To help turn aspirations into opportunities, the championships support qualification through four different routes.

The first is an entry standard of 6200 points in decathlon, aimed at established decathletes.

The second is an entry standard of 5000 points in heptathlon, intended to support established heptathletes who would like to try the fuller event.

The third route is the most creative, a minimum number of points across each of a running, throwing, and jumping event, to capture participants with potential across the ten combined events.

Finally, the organising committee is also able to issue individual invitations.

In addition to the main competition, this approach creates valuable, and very visible, pathways for progression, supplementing the field of seasoned ten-eventers with those who have the potential to challenge them, and to together drive the event forward.

These qualification principles also help break the vicious cycle in which female decathletes can find themselves trapped. Few opportunities to compete mean that there is little chance for developing decathletes to progress. That in turn can lead to the self-fulfilling assertion that the sport is not developing, and that there is little demand, and so organisers are not inclined to provide opportunities.

The principles underpinning this unusual world championships have, over the past two years, shown both what could have been and what might yet be possible.

In 2024, elite heptathlete Allison Halverson rounded off her athletics career to win the championships, scoring 7236 in her first decathlon at 31 years old. In 2025, NCAA heptathlete Nikki Boon also won the title with 7451 points on her debut, aged 24, showing what yet might be possible.

What brilliant decathletes might be out there that we will never know about, because they never got a chance to compete?

What might be possible for an athlete who scored 7451 on her first attempt, if only she could train for and compete for the event like her male counterparts?

Where the champs are happening, although they almost didn’t…

Although these championships were a year in preparation, rolling straight on from the previous two editions, an unwelcome development just a few weeks before they were due to take place meant that they almost didn’t happen at all.

Plans were in place for the competition to return to the SPIRE Academy in Geneva, Ohio, the same venue that had hosted the event on both previous occasions.

However, with less than a month to go, the women seeking to compete for the title of the world’s greatest all-round athlete were told that they would have to find another venue to make way for the Freedom 250 “Patriot” Games. Go figure.

Thankfully, nearby Oberlin College stepped in to save the competition, and the event will take place at their venue on Saturday 8^th and Sunday 9^th of August.

There will be a two-hour programme reviewing the highlights of the first nine events, and showing the 1500m live, on the All Women’s Sports Network at 1800-2000 ET on Sunday 9th August.

You can also find details of “watch parties” on the Women’s Decathlon World Championships website and social media pages.

The athletes participating in the elite decathlon are outlined in the next section.

In addition to the elite decathlon, there will be an Open Girls and Women’s Decathlon taking place, with no qualifying standards.

The women shaping decathlon

Whether on or off the field, the women involved in the championships this weekend are helping to shape the direction of decathlon.

On the field, the line-up is a mix of experienced decathletes, and athletes from individual and other combined events participating in the discipline for the first time.

Significantly, the field also includes two current world-class heptathletes, Australian Olympian Camryn Newton-Smith and France’s Esther Conde-Turpin.

The seasoned decathletes include Noemie Desailly and Roseva Bidois of France, and Jordyn Bruce and Katie Straus of the USA.

Noemie Desailly is a contemporary of French stars such as Auriana Lazraq-Khlass, Louise Maraval and Agathe Guillemot, all of whom competed in combined events before finding success within or beyond those disciplines.

However, the decathlon suits Desailly much better than the heptathlon. She is now the sixth best decathlete in history, having improved her best from 7705 to 7793 points already this year. In France, that’s second only to Marie Collonville, who scored 8150 in 2004.

Desailly competed in pole vault when she was younger, and she brings that strength to the decathlon.

Conversely, her teammate Roseva Bidois brings expertise in the discus, a skill which also cannot be utilised in the seven events of a heptathlon.

Several of the best male decathletes in the world, including 2025 world champion Leo Neugebauer and 2023 world bronze medallist (and newly crowned three-time Commonwealth champion) Lindon Victor, are renowned for the impact their powerful discus throws have on their overall decathlon scores.

Bidois is on a par with good male decathletes in the discus.

Discus is an event where, despite the different weights, elite athletes tend to throw similar distances in both the men’s and women’s events. Bidois’ discus best of 49.76m is therefore at a similar level, and on occasions beyond, what we see in most elite men’s decathlons.

However, one event does not a decathlon make, and Bidois has meticulously built up all the rest of her events to a current PB of 7495, set this year. She won silver at the world championships in 2024 and finished fourth in 2025.

Corinn Brewer, now 22, has been with the women’s decathlon movement since she was at school as a teenager and has a PB of 6850, with a deadly 1500m best of 4:50.24. She can run the 1500m faster than the PBs of some top male decathletes.

Brewer is not alone in having strengths in the middle distance. Several female decathletes also have achievements at the longer end of middle distance, which would be near unheard of in the men’s event.

The female experience of decathlon, particularly in the 1500m, is establishing a perspective very different from the traditional image of giant men lumbering painfully around the track for three and three-quarter laps.

The number two decathlete of all time, Jordan Gray of the USA, reflected on the 1500m in an interview with Decathletes of Europe in 2019. She said, “All the [male] decathletes told me ‘You’re going to hate it. It’s the worst event. It’s the most terrible thing. You’re going to die.’ I went and did it, and I was like, you guys, that was so much better than the 800, I loved it, what are you talking about?!”

Delaney Straus – no relation to Katie – who is competing this weekend for the USA holds her college’s record for the 3000m steeplechase. Perhaps we might find it is the case that female decathletes are generally better equipped to tackle the 1500m than their male counterparts.

The reigning world decathlon champion, Nikki Boon of the Netherlands, returns to defend her title. Boon was able to convert a 5435 heptathlon into a 7451 decathlon. So what might a 6000+ heptathlete be able to achieve?

One of the most interesting dynamics of the competition will be how the world-class heptathletes, Camryn Newton-Smith and Esther Conde-Turpin, fare against the experienced decathletes.

Newton-Smith’s heptathlon best is 6180, although she has struggled with injury this season. On the other hand, Conde-Turpin is in excellent form, scoring 6224 to win the French heptathlon title this year, within six points of her 2018 PB. She qualified for next week’s European Championships in heptathlon, but for the second edition in a row was not given one of the available spaces in the French team.

A taster of how a world class heptathlete might handle decathlon has emerged in the last few weeks from Hungarian heptathlete Xenia Krizsan, who has been a top eight finisher in Olympic, World and European competitions over the last decade.

Although not competing at this championships, the 33-year-old participated in a decathlon in Hungary recently, scoring 7112 on her debut at the event, with little training, and in a season where she has competed in very little else.

The full elite field, from across four continents, is:

• France: Noemie Desailly, Roseva Bidois, Esther Conde-Turpin, Raphäele Rolnin, Adeline Audigier, Suzanne Fournier

• The Netherlands: Nikki Boon, Julia Jongejeugd

• Spain: Uxia Pereira Alonso

• United States: Katie Straus, Jordyn Bruce, Corinn Brewer, Jessica Swalve, Hannah Hill, Madison Luthy, Delaney Straus, Laura Mathews, Alysa Henry, Aubrey Phillips, Elisabeth Eichinger

• Canada: Robin Selkirk

• Mexico: Giselle Burgos

• Australia: Camryn Newton-Smith, Amber Nyssen

• New Zealand: Maria Sartin

• Palestine: Suraia Amer

Decathletes and Ambassadors

For many of the women competing, over and above the weight of decathlon training, they are also tireless ambassadors for the sport.

While not competing this year, decathlete and world-record holder in the double-decathlon Lauren Kuntz is driving the world championships competition forward, on the back of earlier work done by Becca Peter (of Pole Vault Power) and Jordan Gray to establish the discipline as a championship event.

Over and above the execution of the event, Kuntz has helped secure TV coverage and deployed some of the best pre-competition narratives you’ll see in combined events.

Presenting the field in the context of their strengths, their backgrounds and the role that they might play in the competition is a no-brainer approach to setting out the dynamic of a decathlon. World and European Athletics should be watching this event closely, for tips on how to set the scene for combined events. Framing includes:

• The Defending Champion (Nikki Boon)

• The Thrower (Roseva Bidois)

• The Hometown Favourite (Katie Straus)

• The Dark Horse (Alyssa Henry)

• The Olympian (Camryn Newton-Smith)

• The Future (19-year-old Aubrey Phillips)

• The Challenger (Robin Selkirk)

• The Beauty Queen (Gigi Burgos)

• The Vaulter (Suzanne Fournier)

• The Explorer (Adeline Audigier)

Great Britain’s Olympic pole vault bronze medallist Holly Bradshaw will be part of the announcing team, bringing her championships expertise to support the athletes as they gather for the competition this weekend (and Decathletes of Europe will be supporting the commentators with event-by-event analysis).

Adeline Audigier is at the heart of the Decafeminin movement in France, working closely with Marie Collonville and the French federation to include, successfully, decathlon championships and titles for women as part of the standard national athletics ecosystem.

Maria Sartin of New Zealand is a decathlete with a 400m hurdles background but is also the owner of a women’s apparel company, “Uncontainable”, and is the official supplier of the kit to athletes at the championships.

Barriers to be overcome

The classic decathlon barrier to overcome is 8000 points.

Only three women have ever scored over 8000 points in decathlon: world record holder Austra Skujyte (WR 8358), American record holder Jordan Gray (NR 8246), and French record holder Marie Collonville (NR 8150).

A number of athletes are on the path towards that milestone, the closest being Noemie Desailly with her new 7793 lifetime best.

The points are not directly comparable with the men’s, in part because the decathlon mirrors the variation in hurdles seen in the individual events (i.e. 110m for men, 100m for women).

But regardless, 8000 points is the milestone for which female decathletes are aiming, the same as their male counterparts.

However, some barriers invoke less inspiration, and more frustration. Obstacles to the development of decathlon for women remain a feature of the rule books, and in outdated attitudes to women in sport.

For example, Skujyte’s world record should be much higher than it is. To this day, the combined events rules still emit an unpleasant whiff of underlying sexism.

They set out competition conditions for decathlon where men undertake ten disciplines in the order in which they were designed, but where women may still be required to swap the middle three events between days to avoid presenting an inconvenience to meet organisers.

That original discrimination, requiring women to adjust their competition to allow the men’s event to be prioritised, would never be permitted now, under World Athletics admirable gender equity principles. It is, to all intents and purposes, obsolete as a gender-differentiation rule. But it was fully in play in Skujyte’s day, as she talked about in her interview with Decathletes of Europe, and the additional fatigue generated by the clumsy order undoubtedly suppressed her score. A version of it still remains on the face of World Athletics technical rules.

The offensive clause is mirrored by the absence of provision of a full points table for the indoor heptathlon, the winter complement to the decathlon. Despite the abundance of statisticians in the sport, and the major statistical work undertaken in recent years to establish a world rankings system, a 1000m points table for women is still absent from women’s combined events toolkit.

There are, however, some small wins to celebrate. Until this year, one could search World Athletics yearly top lists for results in events as diverse as the 50m, 55m, 500m, 50m hurdles, 55m hurdles, sprint medley 1000m, 4x800m and 4x1500m, but not for women’s decathlon results.

Following representation to World Athletics, the governing body adjusted the search filter to accommodate decathlon for both sexes. This may seem like a small thing, but easy access to a live bank of results is a significant motivator for developing decathletes, showing readymade goals to stretch ambition, whatever the athlete’s current standard.

Attitudes are changing

Beyond the rule books and the practical arrangements, there is optimism that other, attitudinal, barriers are also starting to fall.

A favourite, but lazy, argument against decathlon was that elite heptathletes would not want to switch to ten events. That assertion was quite possibly true, but it wasn’t the “gotcha” moment it was often made out to represent.

The argument was based on the premise that an elite heptathlete would turn up to training one day, be presented with a pole and a discus, and told that she was now doing ten events.

In actual fact, any transition to decathlon would have a long trajectory, likely beyond the career window of any current elite athlete, with plenty of time for the contributing pool of athletes to adapt to the new goals.

So while the voices of current elite heptathletes are important in shaping the future of combined events, hanging the future picture on whether they would personally wish to switch from heptathlon to decathlon in the next few years was somewhat irrelevant, at best mischievous and at worst cynical.

Male coaches of successful female heptathletes were also typically asked what they thought of a potential switch. Most were, unsurprisingly, against a hypothetical move which, if implemented in the past, could have affected the prospects for their current charges.

The one voice rarely consulted was that of female decathletes.

Thankfully, discourse has now moved on from those clumsy attempts to set women against each other, and the range of voices is now much more inclusive.

The world’s current number one heptathlete, Anna Hall-Slayton and her US teammate Michelle Atherley were asked about decathlon at the 2025 Götzis press conference.

Their answers showed a maturity of thought and respect for their combined events sisters who wanted to pursue ten events. Both said that they would not want to see heptathlon end but agreed that there needed to be a place for decathlon in the conversation. An admirable framing of the complex issues, and deft side-step of a gauche attempt to divide female athletes.

Legacy, not loss

Perhaps the most frustrating argument against decathlon has been the suggestion that it is the role of women to protect the legacy of heptathlon, and that they should curb their ambitions in order to protect the achievements of the past.

It is hard to imagine any other line of work where it is appropriate for women to be told that they may progress no further, and that the next level is reserved only for men. Where they are told that it is their job to protect a legacy, rather than to allow that legacy to broaden, deepen and evolve.

And this, in a roundabout way, takes us to the crux of the issue.

Mary Peters’ legacy is no less magnificent because her five events laid the path for seven.

Jackie Joyner Kersee’s legacy, the one which inspired little girls in the 1980s and 1990s to run, jump and throw, would be no less treasured if seven events became ten.

Perhaps if JJK’s world record had been overtaken and had not stood so far out of touch for almost 40 years, we would be less reluctant to move on from the event.

But ultimately, neither of those women had a choice.

Five events were all that were on offer to Mary Peters, Heide Rosenthal and Burglinde Pollak, while Daley Thompson, Jurgen Hingsen and the (then) Bruce Jenner had ten.

Seven events were all that were on offer to JJK, Carolina Kluft, Jessica Ennis-Hill and Nafi Thiam, while Roman Sebrle, Erki Nool, Bryan Clay, Ashton Eaton and Kevin Mayer all had ten.

If decathlon had been the default option for young women entering combined events, as it is for men, would any of those famous female athletes gone on to win the accolades they had done?

Perhaps, perhaps not. If they had had the choice between pentathlon, heptathlon and decathlon, would they have chosen decathlon? Perhaps, perhaps not.

But the answers don’t really matter.

Because the trap that this train of thought creates is that, without those great pentathletes and heptathletes, there would have been a vacuum of great female combined eventers.

Of course there would be no vacuum.

There would be other women’s names etched in our history books as the greatest all round female athlete in the world, but on an equal footing to the greatest all round male athlete in the world.

We just don’t know what those names would have been because we never had a chance to learn them.

And so, there is one last milestone to be entered into the Olympic timeline set out so eloquently by our friends at the Zeus files.

The women participating in the world decathlon championships this weekend are hopeful that there will be an Olympic decathlon for women in the not-too-distant future.

But whether the future for female combined events is over ten events, or over seven, that decision should be made by women, informed by an opportunity to try both.

The Olympic programme should not continue to be determined by what the powerful men of yore thought about whether women could, or should, compete on an equal basis with men.

The action starts on Saturday 8^th August.

After a windy first morning session of the Commonwealth Games decathlon, the decathletes emerged back into the evening sunlight of Scotstoun, to the strains of “Danny Boy”.

Kate O’Connor was being awarded her gold medal for the heptathlon, for Northern Ireland, alongside silver medallist Jade O’Dowda for England, and bronze medallist Tori West for Australia.

The small field, just twelve, was split into two groups. Most of the field had bests between 1.95m and 2.05m, a compact range of heights with little scope for major problems unless points were tight.

Outwith that scope sat two athletes. Max Teuruaa of the Cook Islands had the lowest PB height, of 1.78m, and so would likely be done and dusted before most of the field entered.

At the other end of the scale, TJ Shankar has a PB of 2.29m, and has jumped 2.26m already this year. Most of the field would have likely had their final three attempts before he even entered the competition.

Teuruaa had a good run all the way through to 1.76m. He had three good attempts at what would have been a new lifetime best of 1.79m, but was the first to exit the competition, at 1.76m.

After a third attempt clutch jump at 1.85m, Callum Newby of Scotland cleared 1.88m at the first attempt but failed at 1.91m. That was a little disappointing for the Scot, who would have wanted to jump nearer to 2m.

More significantly, Lindon Victor of Grenada crashed out at 1.88m, having passed at 1.85m. After a third failed attempt at 1.88m, his frustration at leaving with a best of only 1.82m was visible as he rolled off the high jump bed.

For most others in the field, two metres was the height at which they began to tip like dominoes. Jami Schlueter of Nigeria, Sammy Ball of England, Damian Warner of Canada and Lewis Church of England all failed to clear two metres and retired with a best of 1.97m. For a few, an initial clearance came with a late, dramatic drop of the bar, so each clearance was met with a pause, just a moment, to ensure the clearance stuck.

So as the field thinned out, two men were left, one in each group.

Evan Campbell, and TJ Shankar.

The athlete from Jersey, and the top decathlete high jumper in the world.

Both cleared two metres, and for a moment, both men had collected the same number of points from the event. Close to his PB of 2.03m, that was Campbell’s best of the evening.

So now time for Shankar to build points. Like Simon Ehammer, having a world class individual event can come in very useful to provide a buffer for the weaker events later in the competition

.

Shankar sailed over 2.06m and passed at 2.09m.

He attempted 2.12m, but at his first failure, something was clearly wrong. Shankar had retired early from the individual high jump competition, telling Indian media:

“In my second jump, I felt a shooting pain in my knee. It’s not a new injury, but I’ve always had tendonitis in my knee. I decided to stop after my first jump. I don’t want to ruin the next event that I have.

”

We then saw some tactical jumping, from Shankar, which is unusual in decathlon.

Rather than continue with attempts at 2.12m, he took his “second” attempt at 2.15m and cleared it. He then took two attempts at 2.18m, before using his third attempt to try at 2.21m.

In combined events, there is no countback penalty. It doesn’t matter whether you cleared a height on the first, second or third attempts – the points are the same. The only difference is the fatigue in the legs from the multiple attempts.

Very rarely, a decathlete will go for broke for a higher height in the pole vault with their second or third attempt, if a gamble is the only route to a medal. The high jump is, however, too early in the competition to risk losing points.

So why did TJ spread out his attempts? The short answer – to get as high as possible with as few jumps as possible.

When your best is 2.29m, you can have some confidence that you can clear heights 10-15cm below that. So using his attempts to skip through heights from 2.12m to 2.21m saved the load on his injured knee.

The gamble didn’t pay off entirely, and he landed at the sort of heights a Garland, Baldwin or Skotheim might produce. But 2.15m was still 15cm clear of the next athlete, and very useful points on the scoreboard.

After four events, Lindon Victor and TJ Shankar swapped places. Shankar moved from fifth to second, while the reigning champion dropped from second to fifth.

1. Damian Warner (CAN) 3541

2. TJ Shankar (IND) 3502

3. Sammy Ball (ENG) 3381

4. Jami Schlueter (NGR) 3368

5. Lindon Victor (GRN) 3329

6. Lewis Church (ENG) 3207

7. Callum Newby (SCO) 3203

8. Evan Campbell (JER) 3088

9. Joel McFarlane (SCO) 3069

10. Max Attwell (NZ) 3044

11. Edwin Too (KEN) 2965

12. Max Teuruaa (COK) 2709

400m

The final event of the first day was all about the Scots.

In the second heat of the 400m, Callum Newby and Joel McFarlane came around the final bend in a heather blur, step for step in the two inside lines, and finished first and second to the delight of the home crowd

.

Newby, the slower of the two on paper, pulled away in the home straight and scraped several hundredths off his lifetime best, reducing it from 48.63s to 48.59s. McFarlane was next in 49.3s.

The two were separated in the overall results for the discipline by Sammy Ball’s solid run of 48.86s in the first heat, but the runs improved their overall standings. Newby moved up from seventh place to sixth, and McFarlane from ninth to eighth.

The placings above the Scots did not change, but the gaps narrowed. Shankar had been 39 points behind Warner after the high jump, but the Indian reduced that to only 14 points after running 49.51s to Warner’s 50.05s.

Sammy Ball reduced the gap between himself and Shankar from 121 to 90.

After the first day of competition, it was tight at the top.

1. Damian Warner (CAN) 4353

2. TJ Shankar (IND) 4339

3. Sammy Ball (ENG) 4249

4. Jami Schlueter (NGR) 4196

5. Lindon Victor (GRN) 4171

6. Callum Newby (SCO) 4084

7. Lewis Church (ENG) 3943

8. Joel McFarlane (SCO) 3916

9. Max Attwell (NZ) 3849

10. Evan Campbell (JER) 3743

11. Edwin Too (KEN) 3726

12. Max Teuruaa (COK) 3435

110m hurdles

After a relatively drama-free first day, the second day of competition brought disaster for several athletes, in different ways.

The most brutal impact came for Evan Campbell, who fell early on in his heat. He got up, finished the race, and carried on, having worked too hard to make it to the Games wearing the Jersey colours to admit defeat

.

In the same heat, Lindon Victor finished the race, but haemorrhaged points, running only 15.67s.

In the second heat, Callum Newby almost suffered a similar fate to his training partner Campbell. Losing his rhythm, he stumbled through several hurdles in the second half of the race and then broke the horizontal of the final hurdle as his foot struck it. Newby lost his balance, lurching wildly, but had enough momentum to recover and run through the line. His time of 15.02s, while way down on what he would have wanted, was in the end still the sixth best of the morning.

The more subtle blow was for Damian Warner. He finished first, and four tenths ahead of anyone else, so that’s good, right?

No, it wasn’t. This is where the nuance of combined events comes into play. The athletes aren’t trying to win a heat or finish ahead of someone else in a race, or at least that’s not their primary objective. They are trying to extract the maximum number of points for their own performance.

And a run of 14.04s for Damian Warner is very far from the performance, and suite of points, he would expect to extract from the 110m hurdles. For context, he ran 13.76s in Götzis, which was in itself slower than expected

.

So despite finishing first, this was not a good event for Warner. Yes, it extended his lead by 47 points. But usually his hurdles points are what put him out of reach of everyone else. On this occasion, the points leave the 2021 Olympic champion vulnerable.

Shankar had a solid run of 14.41s, but the best performances came from Lewis Church and Sammy Ball. Although the wind was marginally over the legal limit for individual record purposes (+2.2), they both ran slightly faster than their PB times, 14.43s for Church and 14.61s for Ball.

Where Warner lost advantage, the English gained momentum.

After six events:

1. Damian Warner (CAN) 5322

2. TJ Shankar (IND) 5261

3. Sammy Ball (ENG) 5146

4. Jami Schlueter (NGR) 5099

5. Lindon Victor (GRN) 4941

6. Callum Newby (SCO) 4931

7. Lewis Church (ENG) 4863

8. Joel McFarlane (SCO) 4653

9. Max Attwell (NZ) 4560

10. Edwin Too (KEN) 4469

11. Max Teuruaa (COK) 4176

12. Evan Campbell (JER) 3743

Discus

By the time the seventh event arrived, it was clear that all was not well with Damian Warner. Canadian media reported that he was suffering from cramp on day one, particularly in his biceps.

That played through in the discus. Warner, usually in the high 40s, could not get beyond 38m, throwing 37.61m, 37.40m and a foul.

After the long jump, the Canadian had had a cushion of 153 points to his nearest rival. The gap was slowly whittled down event by event, to 80 after the shot, 39 after the high jump, to its narrowest at 14 after the 400m. The boost which would normally come from the hurdles only took the lead to 61 points. And it was about to shrink to single figures.

Unusually, the threat didn’t come only from Lindon Victor, who always hops up the standings after the discus. After a false alarm with a mis-measured 56.07m, Lindon’s best was 53.52m, typical for his strongest event. That brought him into third position, 53 points behind Warner. On another day that might have put him into the lead, but with a disappointing high jump and hurdles, Victor was also behind schedule.

Instead, the emerging threat to Warner came from a tiny improvement at the 40m mark.

As a high jumper-turned decathlete, discus was always going to be one of the harder events for TJ Shankar to master from a technical perspective. But he added three important metres to his best during the course of competition. His personal best before the event was 39.28m. He extended that to 39.66m in the second round, and over 40m to 40.44m in the third round. That tiny improvement brought him within three points of the lead.

Now, the other technical event still on Shankar’s to-do list is the pole vault. But with Warner struggling to produce his usual benchmarks, Shankar’s top end of 4.35m might not be the limiting factor it has been to date.

Elsewhere, Callum Newby recovered well from his hurdles scare with a 42.16m PB. He started the competition with the tenth best PB but ended it with the fourth best result overall.

Joel McFarlane had his own scare with two no-throws but rescued his competition with a throw a touch under 40m on his final attempt.

After seven events, the only change in standings was Lindon Victor leapfrogging Jami Schlueter and Sammy Ball into third. But the difference between first and third had concertinaed from 176 points to 53 points, with Ball only another 25 points behind in fourth.

1. Damian Warner (CAN) 5938

2. TJ Shankar (IND) 5935

3. Lindon Victor (GRN) 5885

4. Sammy Ball (ENG) 5860

5. Jami Schlueter (NGR) 5701

6. Callum Newby (SCO) 5640

7. Lewis Church (ENG) 5605

8. Joel McFarlane (SCO) 5315

9. Max Attwell (NZ) 5214

10. Edwin Too (KEN) 5071

11. Max Teuruaa (COK) 4641

12. Evan Campbell (JER) 4434

Pole Vault

For a decathlon where there have been almost no instances of disqualification or no-marks (save for poor Evan Campbell in the hurdles) it has been unusually chaotic.

While the numbers underpinning a decathlon usually provide the canvas on which to paint the picture of the evolving scene, whether that be a soothing Monet or a more boisterous Caravaggio, this decathlon has been more of a Jackson Pollock.

It looks nice, it’s pleasing to stare at it, but you have absolutely no clue what is going on.

The only significant thing to happen in the pole vault is that Damian Warner’s troubles continued, with a best of only 4.40m. He was, however, unlucky in his first attempt at 4.50m. He cleared the height cleanly, but his pole tipped onto the bar and knocked it off.

It is tribute to Warner that when his decathlon tips off its axis, it changes the whole balance of the decathlon. Dynamics are emerging which didn’t exist when his footprint dictated the flow of points.

Callum Newby was the only 5m vaulter in the field before the competition, and he jumped 5m exactly. Lewis Church and Lindon Victor both cleared 4.70m, an excellent result for Church and a solid one for Victor (especially since he was carrying an injury which was clearly bothering him).

Jami Schlueter and Sammy Ball both cleared 4.60m, good results for both of them. Max Attwell cleared 4.50m. TJ Shankar cleared 4.30m, just short of his best. Joel McFarlane cleared 4.30m, within 20cm of his best.

The effect of all of that was for Lindon Victor to move into the lead, and TJ Shankar to drop below Sammy Ball. Callum Newby also moved up into fifth place, and within scent of the podium, although a lot would need to happen for that to become reality. Lewis Church will almost certainly bring a late charge.

This decathlon has the most unusual of dynamics, with this rarely formulated Commonwealth field. It’s a new dynamic, and it’s hard to watch Damian Warner struggle. But with two events to go, it sure is compelling.

1. Lindon Victor (GRN) 6704

2. Damian Warner (CAN) 6669

3. Sammy Ball (ENG) 6650

4. TJ Shankar (IND) 6637

5. Callum Newby (SCO) 6550

6. Jami Schlueter (NGR) 6491

7. Lewis Church (ENG) 6424

8. Joel McFarlane (SCO) 6017

9. Max Attwell (NZ) 5974

10. Edwin Too (KEN) 5580

11. Max Teuruaa (COK) 5258

12. Evan Campbell (JER) 5079

The last time anyone other than a Canadian or Grenadian won the title was even further back in time, in 2006.

And in Glasgow in 2026, the chances of either Canadian 2021 Olympic champion Damian Warner or Grenadian 2024 Olympic bronze medallist Lindon Victor continuing that streak are pretty darn good.

First place after three events

When Damian Warner has a bad day, his bad day is still probably better than most others’ best day. While, at 36, he may not be in the shape which took him to the rarified air of the 9000-point club in 2021, he can still bang out 8400 and 8500+ decathlons to order, scores way beyond what anyone else (other than his buddy Victor) in the Commonwealth decathlon field has achieved in their careers.

This year in Götzis, Warner set the scene for competition with a 10.28s 100m and 7.73m long jump, a combination of marks for which most decathletes would sacrifice a limb. Although his second day went awry, he still scored 8497 points.

The Canadian veteran was already ahead of that profile after two events today in Glasgow, 10.21s and 7.77m for the opening sprint and jump respectively. The combined wind behind those marks was a 7.6 metres per-second-level hoolie, but that matters not for a championship competition.

His shot was a little down, usually logging a mark starting with a 15 than a 13 (13.84m) but after three events he is 80 points ahead of his nearest rival.

Warner won the competition the last time it was held in Glasgow, scoring 8282 to win in Hampden Park in 2014.

Second place after three events

Lindon Victor is the reigning Commonwealth champion, winning both Birmingham in 2022 and in Gold Coast in 2018.

In Birmingham, he had a close match with Cedric Dubler of Australia, chuckling about the inconvenience of constantly swapping leader bibs as the Australian surged ahead in the jumps, while Victor regained ground in the throws.

Since that gold medal in 2022, the Grenadian has improved to the highest levels of decathlon, with a bronze medal at the World Championships in Budapest in 2023, a bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024, and a personal best of 8756.

2026 has been tentative for Lindon, competing only in individual events as he navigates some issues. But 10.54s in the 100m (fastest behind Damian), 7.20m in the long jump and a big throw of 16.09m have placed him in second after three events.

While Damian’s decathlon profile is anchored on his speed, Lindon’s decathlon profile is structured around his throws. His second day brings an enormous discus (50m+) and javelin (70m+).

Third place after three events

Sammy Ball of England is in third place after three events, with good performances in the 100m (10.56s) and long jump (7.49m) to help him on his way. Both were wind-assisted, but all the 100m heats and most of the long jump attempts were also so boosted, so the relative performances remain relevant.

Ball is one of three English athletes to break 8000 points for the first time in the last few years. The others are Lewis Church, also competing, and Jack Turner, now retired.

Sammy’s performance at championships has been hampered by unfortunate timing with injuries, taking him out of contention for age group titles at EU20 and EU23 level, when he would have otherwise expected to collect a medal.

His breakthrough performance of 8100 points came at Götzis in 2025, where he was named Rookie of the Year. Ball’s participation in various competitions this year was postponed due to a series of niggling injuries, but so far in Glasgow he looks to be in very good shape.

He has a good mix of strengths across days, with room to improve in the pole vault, although that matters less outside a global championships or major meet.

Fourth place after three events

Jami Schlueter of Nigeria is in fourth place after three events, just 13 points behind Ball. It’s been a grand year for Schlueter so far, scoring over 8000 points for the first time, and racking up marks for Nigeria, to whom he transferred from Great Britain and Northern Ireland officially in November 2025.

Following the end of his NCAA college career (where he was at University of Washington) Schlueter is now training with Lindon Victor in Texas, under 2000 Olympic bronze medallist Chris Huffins and Marissa Chew. That squad also includes Joel McFarlane of Scotland, and Kendrick Thompson of The Bahamas (who did not start the competition).

Schlueter’s progress has been outstanding this year, setting personal bests in almost every discipline. He has started well in Glasgow, with 10.70s in the 100m, 7.16m in the long jump and a very good 15.35m in the shot.

Fifth place after three events

In fifth place after the morning session, lies India’s Tejaswin (TJ) Shankar. Originally a high jumper – in fact he won bronze for India at the 2022 Games – he tried out combined events as part of a bet with his training partner at Kansas State University, the New Zealand decathlete Aaron Booth.

Shankar brings a high jump personal best of 2.29m to the competition, although that should always be caveated in a decathlon by the fatigue of three events which have gone before.

The world best for a high jump in an 8000+ decathlon belongs to Christian Schenk, who leaped 2.27m in an 8400+ decathlon at the Olympics in Seoul in 1988.

The less relevant outright world best, in a 7000+ decathlon (which means much lower marks in all other events) is 2.28m by Derek Drouin in a 7150 decathlon.

Shankar’s best in a decathlon so far has been 2.25m, in his 8000 point score this year. He was originally also entered for the individual high jump in Glasgow but retired early on when he felt some pain in a recurring knee injury.

Watch the standings turn on their head in the fourth event after Shankar jumps. Only his pole vault, the most technical of events which he came to late as an athlete, remains a weak point for him at 4.35m. So the Indian’s objective in the high jump will be to put as much vertical space as possible between him and his competitors, to cushion him for the weaker event to come on day two.

Sixth place after three events

In sixth place, Scotland’s new decathlon star Callum Newby is 51 points behind TJ Shankar.

In 2026, Newby has broken both the Scottish national indoor heptathlon record, and the national decathlon record. The latter came at the Bryan Clay Invitational in Azusa in April, under the watchful eye of none other than Damian Warner himself, who was participating in a few individual events.

Newby’s goal was to achieve the Scottish Commonwealth Games qualification mark, which he did with 7867, but 8000 points also seem well within his reach. The former cage-fighting physics graduate is by far the best pole vaulter in the field – no-one else has ever cleared 5m, and his best is 5.15m – so Newby has some tricks up his sleeve on day 2.

So far Newby has had a brilliant start to his home decathlon. His 100m mark of 10.76s was 0.2 seconds faster than his PB time (although not an official PB due to the +4.3m wind), and his long jump of 7.45m was within a centimetre of his best although, again, wind assisted. And his shot of 13.04m, one of the events where is still improving, was a solid effort against his lifetime best of 13.58m.

Seventh place after three events

In seventh place, 74 points behind Newby, England’s Lewis Church has started his decathlon well. In a major decathlon, he is typically a climber over ten events, stalking the faster decathletes who dominate with their fast times and big jumps in the early events.

In 2022, Church delivered a brilliant performance at Multistars to achieve the England qualification mark for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games. But he wasn’t selected.

Since then, Church has scored over 8000 points, twice. His entry into decathlon in 2026 has been a little subdued thus far, managing some injuries to score 7666 in Götzis, but the Commonwealth Games have been the priority.

With a lifetime best of 11.00s in the 100m, 11.14s was a good start, wind or no wind. And then he equalled his PB of 7.10m in the long jump, once with a legal wind and again with a windy wind. He followed that with a solid 14.56s shot, behind only Victor and Schlueter. Those points collected may not place him at the top of the standings in day 1, but they build a foundation for his stronger events to come.

Eighth place after three events

The second Scottish decathlete in the field (such riches!) is Joel McFarlane, who trains with Victor and Schlueter in Texas. He lies 58 points behind Church in eighth place after three events.

His decathlon PB is 7661, and the big improvement still to come is in his hurdles. As a decathlete of relatively compact build, the adaptation to senior heights is still work in progress for McFarlane. That’s a challenge which 2024 Olympic champion Markus Rooth also articulated at a similar point in his career, and when that comes for Joel, a significant number of points will be unlocked.

His start in the competition has been up and down, a 10.85s sprint (just a few hundredths short of his best), a 6.98m long jump, and a 13.05m shot.

Ninth to twelfth place after three events

In ninth place, multiple New Zealand decathlon champion and 2022 Oceania Champion Max Atwell is 25 points behind McFarlane, with a decent series of marks across the first three events. Atwell’s lifetime best decathlon is 7822.

In tenth place, Evan Campbell is representing Jersey, and he is also the training partner of Callum Newby. Campbell had a rollercoaster ride to qualification for the Games, but with 11.32s (wind-assisted) he ran faster than his 100m PB to settle into the competition. His shot was very good too, with 14.43m.

In eleventh place, Edwin Too of Kenya comes to the Championships on the back of second place at the 2026 African championships. With the exception of his shot, he has a series of best marks which suggest he has a decathlon score much higher than his PB of 7305 to come.

And in twelfth place, Max Teuruaa is representing the Cook Islands. His PB is 6337. He transferred allegiance from New Zealand to the Cook Islands in 2023, and holds the national record in decathlon, hurdles (indoor and out), pole vault, in contributions to various relays and in U20 decathlon. He set his national record while competing as a guest at the New Zealand championships earlier this year.

He had a brilliant long jump, jumping way beyond his PB distance (albeit wind-aided) and threw a PB of 11.31m in the shot.

Scores after three events:

1. Damian Warner (CAN) 2765

2. Lindon Victor (GRN) 2685

3. Sammy Ball (ENG) 2605

4. Jami Schlueter (NGR) 2592

5. TJ Shankar (IND) 2558

6. Callum Newby (SCO) 2507

7. Lewis Church (ENG) 2431

8. Joel McFarlane (SCO) 2373

9. Max Atwell (NZ) 2348

10. Evan Campbell (JER) 2285

11. Edwin Too (KEN) 2242

12. Max Teuruaa (COK) 2115

PS. The Canadian who won the 2010 Commonwealth Games decathlon title was Jamie Adjetey-Nelson of Canada, and the 2006 winner was Dean Macey of England.

Not so large that it couldn’t still be reduced if something went wrong, but large enough to give her confidence that her path to gold was in her own hands, rather than in the control of another athlete.

After a disappointing shot, she had a brilliant solo run in the 200m to recover her lead and rescue her first day.

“I messed up that shot so badly,” she said afterwards. “I just couldn’t deal with the rain, and I’ve not thrown that short in a long, long time. The more I speak about it, the more annoyed I get at myself. I went out and I did myself proud in the 200m. I’m capable of running much faster, but in weather like that, with only 10 minutes to warm up, freezing cold conditions and lashing rain, I think I did a good job.”

The gap between O’Connor and the 2022 bronze medallist, Jade O’Dowda of England, was 49 points. O’Connor was on track to score around 6500, while O’Dowda was just a little short of the profile required to take her to her own PB of just under 6400 points.

Long jump

The fifth event was the last opportunity for someone to drop the ball, and for someone else to pick it up. O’Connor and O’Dowda have very similar lifetime bests, 6.50m and 6.55m respectively, both in that locale already this season.

If both were at the top end of that scale, the scores would rise, but the standings wouldn’t change. If Jade was at the top end and Kate struggling to get over six metres, then that would open up the competition again.

On Wednesday morning, though, it was secret option C. Both athletes split the difference and registered 6.37m and 6.26m respectively, a further small advantage to Kate but no real impact on their relative positions.

The final two events are two of O’Connor’s strongest, and crucially both better than O’Dowda’s parallel performances, and from this point onwards gold was the Irishwoman’s to lose.

But behind the leading pair, the positions shifted.

At the end of the first day, Australia’s Tori West, who just lost out to Mia Scerri in a brilliant national championships recently, was in fifth place, six points ahead of Anna McCauley.

After the 200m McCauley, the second Irishwoman in the field, was 25 points ahead of Ellen Barber of England. McCauley sat in sixth and Barber in eighth.

All three women jumped lifetimes bests in the long jump.

West improved from 6.11m to 6.13m.

McCauley improved from 6.08m to 6.23m.

Barber improved from 6.13m to 6.20m.

West remained in fifth place, with a strong javelin to come.

McCauley leapfrogged several athletes and into fourth place, with a good 800m in her portfolio.

And Barber moved up to sixth, with reliable marks in both events up her sleeve.

Thirty-four points covered fourth, fifth and sixth place positions after five events.

1. Kate O’Connor NIR 4696

2. Jade O’Dowda ENG 4612

3. Mia Scerri AUS 4500

4. Anna McCauley NIR 4432

5. Tori West AUS 4407

6. Ellen Barber ENG 4398

7. Niamh Emerson ENG 4391

8. Maddie Wilson NZ 4386

9. Briana Stephenson NZ 4351

10. Sienna MacDonald CAN 4325

11. Ella Rush GIB 4206

12. Lucy Woodward JSY 4030

13. Hannah Blair CAN 4009

14. Adele Mafogang CAM 3856

15. Allie Routledge SCO 3790

Javelin

Kate O’Connor has one of the best javelin throws in any heptathlon field, and with her first attempt, third in the throwing order, she launched one of her signature 50m plus throws, the spear landing at 52.85m. Job done.

Only misfortune could now stop O’Connor from upgrading her 2022 Commonwealth Games silver medal to gold.

For good measure she took one more throw, also over 50m, and then passed on her final attempt.

But O’Connor was not actually the best javelin thrower on paper. While her lifetime best is 53.06m, Tori West has a PB of 53.97m. That distance wasn’t on the cards for the Australian on this occasion, but her mid-range attempts would still likely be better than most others in the field.

And that was important, to build a buffer to mitigate the efforts of the faster women who would be metaphorically breathing down her neck in the 800m and physically running ahead of her towards the bronze medal in the final event.

West improved with each throw, 44.03m to secure points in the first round, 46.15m to push further in the second, and finally 47.24m in the third.

Her mark of 47.24m was the second best in the competition behind O’Connor.

O’Dowda threw 43.85m in the third round, a good effort and enough to consolidate her second position. Like O’Connor, barring disaster O’Dowda should be on track to upgrade her 2022 Games medal, from bronze to silver.

Ellen Barber was next, with a best throw of 42.77m. She might have wanted a little more, closer to 45m, but it brought her within sight of the podium.

Mia Scerri, the Australian who had been in third place after the 200m and after the long jump, dropped down to fifth place, with a best throw of only 36.30m.

Scerri’s final two events are not her strong suits, but that statement must be caveated by the fact that she is still only 21 years old, and very much still on an improvement trajectory.

But she would be unlikely to improve enough on this occasion to remain in the mix for medals.

Anna McCauley has never thrown over 40m but has come close with a best of 39.35m. Her longest throw in this competition was 36.99m, a good effort, but far enough down the relative list – ninth overall – to impact on her placing.

So after six events, behind the top two, Tori West is in third place. Ellen Barber is in fourth, 95 points behind her.

And if you keep on reading, those 95 points are going to transform into a single potential point between bronze and fourth place.

1. Kate O’Connor NIR 5611

2. Jade O’Dowda ENG 5353

3. Tori West AUS 5214

4. Ellen Barber ENG 5119

5. Mia Scerri AUS 5096

6. Maddie Wilson NZ 5060

7. Niamh Emerson ENG 5057

8. Anna McCauley NIR 5042

9. Sienna MacDonald CAN 5035

10. Briana Stephenson NZ 4926

11. Ella Rush GIB 4718

12. Lucy Woodward JSY 4594

13. Hannah Blair CAN 4452

14. Allie Routledge SCO 4426

15. Adele Mafogang CAM 4405

800m scenarios

Let’s consider the different scenarios which could arise in the 800m.

Tori West is on 5214 points in third place.

Tori’s 800m PB is 2:15.92, worth 880 points.

If she runs her PB in the cool damp conditions of Scotstoun, it will take her to 6094 points.

Ellen Barber is on 5119 points in fourth place.

Ellen’s 800m PB is 2:09.39, worth 974 points.

If she runs her PB, it will take her to 6093 points, one point less than the same calculation for West.

It couldn’t be closer. Projections separated by a single point.

One point in the 800m scoring tables can cover multiple times within a 0.07-0.08s range, so it’s not practical to say exactly what the differential needs to be.

But if West can stay within about 6.5s of Barber, the difference between their PBs, the bronze could go to the Australian.

If Barber can stretch the gap beyond that, the bronze goes to England.

The arithmetic applies at a slower pace too – at their best they would both be approaching 6100, but the same gap plays out at a lower pairing of scores.

But in the unlikely event than neither West nor Barber runs eyeballs out, others could come into play too.

If Maddie Wilson of New Zealand, currently in sixth place on 5060 points, can run her PB of 2:11.53, she’ll be over 6000. Faster than that and she starts climbing towards 6050.

If Niamh Emerson of England, currently in seventh place on 5057 points, can run her best of 2:09.74, she’ll hit 6025. Faster than that, and she’ll start to come into the conversation too, if those above her lose pace.

Anna McCauley has, alas, likely too much to do unless O’Connor drags her to something significantly faster. McCauley’s best 800m is 2:10.54, which would take her to 5999.

Gold and silver look settled. But there’s all to play for to win the Commonwealth heptathlon bronze. The 800m is at 2055 Glasgow time.

Shot

Hardy officials with giant rollers tried their best to relocate the rainwater from the heptathlon shot competition, and from the women’s high jump final taking place on the opposite bend. We can only assume Tuesday night’s entries in La Olyslagers’ journal read “Damp. It’s so damp.”

Niamh Emerson was first to throw, a modest 11.40m before a further hiatus to continue the somewhat futile attempts to dry the ring. Marks were well down on the distances the field would typically expect to throw, of course, and the competition shifted in emphasis. Less about pushing new distances, more about minimising damage.

Jade O’Dowda dealt best with the conditions. She is by no means the longest thrower, an honour which belongs to Kate O’Connor, who has a lifetime best of 14.70m, approaching 15m. Mia Scerri, Niamh Emerson and Ellen Barber also all have PBs over 14m.

The furthest O’Dowda has ever thrown is 13.82m, and in that context 13.28m in drenched conditions was a very good effort.

Scerri had the longest throw overall, 13.87m, while O’Connor could only manage 12.80m.

This was a good result for O’Dowda for two reasons.

First, it was the second-best throw overall and brought valuable additional points from an unexpected source.

In contrast, the shot is one of O’Connor’s best events and not only did O’Dowda’s main rival lose a significant number of points in the rain, but she wasn’t even close to being the top mark.

While there are no prizes for individual event positions in heptathlon, O’Connor might not have expected to find herself with only the fifth best mark in one of her best events, and importantly with a throw shorter than O’Dowda.

After three events, O’Dowda moved back in front of O’Connor, 25 points ahead.

1. Jade O’Dowda 2789

2. Kate O’Connor 2764

3. Niamh Emerson 2663

4. Mia Scerri 2647

5. Maddie Wilson 2610

6. Tori West 2593

7. Anna McCauley 2582

8. Briana Stephenson 2575

9. Ellen Barber 2572

10. Sienna MacDonald 2518

11. Hannah Blair 2496

12. Ella Rush 2400

13. Lucy Woodward 2371

14. Allie Routledge 2306

15. Adele Mafogang 2290

200m

Despite the early hour, at 2000 the atmosphere in Scotstoun Stadium felt more like 2200, as the evening gloom brought forth a premature darkness. While the field events struggled to deal with the torrential rain, the sprinters seemed unusually unperturbed. The individual men’s 100m semi-finals had multiple sub-10s times a short while earlier, while Torrie Lewis set an Australian NR with 11 seconds flat in the women’s equivalent.

And while the sweep of PBs from the morning’s hurdle runs were not replicated in the 200m, there were some very good results. In particular, the Irish women O’Connor and McCauley ran through the heaving rain as if it were not there.

O’Connor, isolated in the slower 200m heat (missing a run to aid with seeding), was ceremonial in demeanour, a curious combination of majestic and pissed off. The disappointing shot was buried by O’Connor’s splendid run of 24.14s, which would be the fastest overall.

In the second heat, McCauley held off both Tori West and a wall of athletes around 24.70s (Stephenson, Barber, Scerri and Stephenson) to run the fastest time, 24.55s to West’s 24.60.

At the end of Day one, O’Connor regained the lead from O’Dowda, turning 1 25-point deficit into a 49-point lead.

Her Day 1 score, if she can maintain the momentum, suggests a potential overall mark of around 6500. O’Dowda, however, is much closer to her lifetime best series, just 14 points behind the path towards the 6391 she scored in Tokyo, and ahead of her 6350 from Goetzis this year.

Mia Scerri is climbing steadily, from 11^th to tenth, to fourth to third at the end of Day one.

1. Kate O’Connor 3731

2. Jade O’Dowda 3682

3. Mia Scerri 3560

4. Niamh Emerson 3554

5. Tori West 3517

6. Anna McCauley 3511

7. Briana Stephenson 3489

8. Ellen Barber 3486

9. Maddie Wilson 3465

10. Sienna MacDonald 3429

11. Ella Rush 3272

12. Hannah Blair 3271

13. Lucy Woodward 3235

14. Allie Routledge 3102

15. Adele Mafogang 3043

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Thirty minutes before the first heat of the first discipline in the 2026 Commonwealth Games heptathlon, a parade of officials trundled onto the track pushing trolleys stacked with hurdles.

By the time they had laid the final flight, the grey skies had relinquished space to patches of blue sky, and the reflection was of sun rather than artificial light. Cold for much of the rest of the Commonwealth, warm for Scotland, and a fresh breeze which was thankfully blowing in the right direction

.

100m hurdles

Seven women emerged for the opening race. Hannah Blair of Canada, Lucy Woodward of Jersey, Ellen Barber of England, Allie Routledge of Scotland, Adele Mafogang Tenkeu of Cameroon, Maddie Wilson of New Zealand and Anna McCauley of Northern Ireland.

Barber had had a brilliant 2026 thus far, improving her indoor pentathlon to qualify for the World Indoor Championships in Torun and improving it further on the big stage. Anna McCauley had scored over 6000 points for the first time in Landquart, a week before Barber and Maddie Wilson competed in Götzis, and Adele Mafogang Tenkeu had collected another African championships medal in 2026.

And with a last gap effort, after falling in the hurdles at her attempt a few weeks earlier, Allie Routledge had secured a Scottish qualification mark of 5502 points at the end of May to make it to her home Games.

The momentum gathered in arriving at the starting line in Glasgow continued for the athletes in the first heat. With a following wind of 1.6 metres per second, strong but legal, five of the seven athletes ran lifetime bests, with the remaining two only a combined 0.15s outside their bests.

Anna McCauley took a quarter of a second off her previous best in 13.70s.

Never previously under 14 seconds, Ellen Barber leapt straight past 13.90s and 13.80s to log a huge best of 13.74s.

Hannah Blair was next in 13.93s, within 0.03 of her best. Lucy Woodward took half a second off her lifetime best, dropping it from 14.55s to 14.05s.

After chopping 0.9s off her best earlier this year, Allie Routledge improved her hurdles by another 0.2s to 14.20s.

Maddie Wilson ran 14.28s, just 0.12 outside her best. And Adele reduced her best mark from 14.96s to 14.80s.

The second heat brought the duo of medallists from 2022, bronze medallist Jade O’Dowda of England and silver medallist Kate O’Connor of Northern Ireland.

Both have flourished since the last edition of the Games; both now indisputably world-class heptathletes, and O’Connor now laden with medals from World Championships, indoor and out.

The final run over the hurdles was a crisper execution, with a useful but less significant wind of 0.8 metres per second, and little deviation from the form on paper.

In the absence of Abi Pawlett, Sienna MacDonald of Canada was the only athlete under 13 seconds, speeding to 12.99s, just two hundredths outside her lifetime best of 12.97s.

O’Dowda was next in 13.32s and O’Connor behind her in 13.54s. Both within a tenth of their lifetime best, both clearly in good form and bringing good speed.

Tori West of Australia had a strong run of 13.55s, ahead of Briana Stephenson of New Zealand.

Next was Niamh Emerson of England, a late but delighted substitute for 2022 champion Katarina Johnson Thompson, in 14.03s.

The new Australian champion Mia Scerri ran 14.05s, not too far from her best of 13.97s, and Ella Rush of Gibraltar (and University of Georgia) rounded off the field in 14.24s.

After one event, MacDonald’s sharp run put her at the top of the table, with O’Dowda and overall favourite O’Connor in second and third respectively.

1. Sienna MacDonald 12.99s 1126

2. Jade O’Dowda 13.32s 1077

3. Kate O’Connor 13.54s 1044

4. Tori West 13.55s 1043

5. Briana Stephenson 13.67s 1026

6. Anna McCauley 13.7s 1021

7. Ellen Barber 13.74s 1015

8. Hannah Blair 13.93s 988

9. Niamh Emerson 14.03s 974

10. Lucy Woodward 14.05s 971

11. Mia Scerri 14.05s 971

12. Allie Routledge 14.2s 950

13. Ella Rush 14.24s 945

14. Maddie Wilson 14.28s 939

15. Adele Mafogang 14.8s 868

High jump

2025 was a good year for Kate O’Connor in high jump.

Her best performance in 2024 was 1.77m, which she jumped at the Olympics. In the first weekend of February in 2025, she sailed past her previous lifetime best (1.81m) to jump 1.82m in Tallinn.

Then she took it to 1.84m en route to bronze at the European Indoor championships in Apeldoorn. And she added another 2cm to clear 1.86m at the World Championships in Tokyo.

Traditionally strongest in the throws, O’Connor’s improvement in the high jump has been one of the factors which have helped her transform from being simply “in the mix” in a heptathlon field, to fighting for medals with the best in the world.

The 2026 world indoor bronze medallist has not, however, competed since she stepped down from the podium in Torun. While the first event showed her speed was good, what of the more technical jumping events?

O’Connor entered the competition at 1.67m, a safe jump to secure points and aid the early rhythm. First time clearances continued all the way to 1.79m.

The next height was 1.82m, a bar which she had only cleared for the first time a year ago. One, two, three attempts and she was over, clearing the best height in the competition alongside Maddie Wilson, who has a PB one cm more than the Irishwoman.

That put O’Connor on a points score of 2047 after two events, stepping into the lead after Sienna MacDonald cleared only 1.64m (high jump is not her best event) and dropped down to seventh place.

For context, en route to her national record of 6714 in Tokyo last year, Kate was on 2113 points.

It would be foolish to draw too many conclusions after only the second milestone on a seven-event journey. But 2047 on a wet Tuesday in Scotstoun compares very well to 2113 on a sultry day in Tokyo.

Behind O’Connor and Wilson, Jade O’Dowda and Niamh Emerson shared the next best height of 1.79m.

Emerson cleared the height at her first attempt, leaping again in glee as she marked another step on her return to top class heptathlon.

A jump so close to 1.80m is significant for Emerson.

She cleared 1.89m when winning the World U20 title in Tampere in 2018, 1.87m when securing the silver medal at the 2019 European Indoor championships here in Glasgow.

The first tentative steps of her heptathlon comeback in Arona in 2022 included a high jump of 1.85m.

So far this year, her best jumps in competition have been 1.65m, 1.74m and 1.74m. Slowly, Niamh is returning and 1.79m with no damage done is a prize worth savouring.

Hannah Blair, Mia Scerri, Briana Stephenson and Anna McCauley all cleared 1.73m, relatively speaking a stronger result for Stephenson and McCauley who both have PBs under 1.80m.

High jump has traditionally been Scotland’s Allie Routledge’s best event, competing in both the individual jump and the heptathlon throughout her career. Her best is 1.82m.

But her ongoing recovery from surgery means that it is not currently the banker event it once was, a shift in perspective she has described as “freeing.”

A jump of 1.71m was enough to power her to qualification for these championships, and viewed through that lens, 1.67m was a solid result.

(Photo: Bobby Gavin for Scottish Athletics)

After two events, O’Connor leads from O’Dowda, already 100 points ahead of third place. Maddie Wilson is at the front of the rest of the field, with just 50 points covering the rest of the top ten.

1. Kate O’Connor NI 2047

2. Jade O’Dowda ENG 2043

3. Maddie Wilson NZ 1942

4. Niamh Emerson ENG 1940

5. Briana Stephenson NZ 1917

6. Anna McCauley NI 1912

7. Sienna MacDonald CAN 1909

8. Tori West AUS 1898

9. Hannah Blair CAN 1879

10. Mia Scerri AUS 1862

11. Ellen Barber ENG 1833

12. Allie Routledge SCO 1768

13. Ella Rush GIB 1763

14. Lucy Woodward JER 1754

15. Adele Mapogang CAM 1723

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Welcome to the Decathletes of Europe Substack

Some of you may already be familiar with my personal musings - on travel, writing, and life between decathlons - at The Decathlon Writer Substack. This is the Decathletes of Europe equivalent, focused on the sport, and where I’ll aim to publish regular round-ups of things I’ve written, snippets of combined events news, and interesting items from the world of decathlon and heptathlon.

I’ll typically sign-post to articles on my website, but for this first edition, here is my Götzis preview in its entirety. I hope you enjoy it. If you do, please subscribe to get future editions straight to your inbox.

2026 GOTZIS PREVIEW

Götzis arrives in the combined events calendar as the first full outdoor competition of the year for many athletes. Some have been active in the indoor season. Some have already done full decathlons and heptathlons in the first few months of the 2026 season. Some have done only individual events, and some have not competed at all.

So let us engage in a little crystal-ball gazing for the 2026 edition of the Hypomeeting Götzis. There are no global championships, since the combined events have been shunned from the Ultimate Championships, but there are European Championships in Birmingham and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow

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DECATHLON

At the time of writing, Hakim McMorris (USA) holds the world lead in decathlon, 8420 points from his win at Mt SAC in April. That represented an improvement of 95 points for McMorris, itself 95 points beyond his 8163 from 2024, which he scored as the final winner of a Thorpe Cup decathlon. McMorris was unlucky not to make it to the World Indoor championships in Poland, having topped the US lists among those eligible to be selected for Torun. But when two of the guys above you in the world rankings from your country go on to win silver and bronze, it’s a fair position. McMorris has a few areas for improvement yet to come, particularly in the long throws. But his flat running events are super, a combination of 10.42s/46.46s/4:21s over 100m, 400m and 1500m respectively.

McMorris is now training with Harrison Williams (USA). Although Williams’ best in 2025 was just over 8200, scored in Tokyo, he has a PB of 8630, and multiple seasons scoring over 8500. Williams is well capable of a high podium place in Götzis if his stars align.

Japan’s Yuma Maruyama has had a dream start to the 2026 outdoor season. In 2025, he was on track for a super performance at the Asian Championships in May, but had a freak accident in the hurdles, hitting his head, ruled out both the gold medal and a good score. He continued in the competition for another three events in order to support his colleagues. Without the Asian title, which went to Xiang Fei, the area champion route to qualify for his home world championships in Tokyo was closed off. Maruyama was not able to secure another performance in time to qualify outright. The blow was softened a little with his second ever 8k score in Nagano towards the end of 2025, but he entered 2026 a new athlete and scored a Japanese national record of 8321 at Mt SAC. That overtook the longstanding record of Keisuke Ushiro, 8308 from 2014. Maruyama has been training occasionally with Erki Nool and Saga Vanninen, an arrangement which is working well for him.

Of course, the highlight of 2026 so far in combined events has been the world heptathlon record of Simon Ehammer (SUI), breaking Ashton Eaton’s mark over seven events at the World Indoor Championships. Ehammer kept rolling into the outdoor season with an early decathlon in Multistars, which he won with 8361. But that should be considered only a warm-up performance, rather than an indicator of Ehammer’s potential this summer. “I needed to remember the pain of decathlon,” he said after the event.

The match-up at Götzis has been framed in places as the world indoor record holder versus the world decathlon champion, Leo Neugebauer (GER). Decathlon fans will know that Neugebauer scored over 200 points higher than Ehammer’s PB in 2025. But Ehammer has momentum, already jumping 8.18m outdoors, and with some very good performances in individual events, notably the 400m and discus. A good and realistic target for Ehammer would be the Beijing decathlon qualifying mark of 8620, announced earlier this week. We’ll save the analysis for another time of why WA set a mark that only four men exceeded in 2025 and expect it to provide 40% of a 24-strong field

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So, what does Neugebauer v Ehammer look like in late May in Götzis? Well, in 2025, Ehammer beat Neugebauer, finishing joint third with Niklas Kaul in 8575, while Neugebauer was sixth in 8555. But Neugebauer has scored over 8600 (and indeed 8620) six times already in his short career, so it would be a reasonable assumption that the German might score around 8700 in his first decathlon of 2026. Or is he saving some energy for home soil in Ratingen in a month’s time? So far, the giant German has only competed in a handful of individual events, all of them solid.

Sander Skotheim (NOR) won’t be in Götzis to defend his 2025 victory (he’s starting a few weeks later in Ratingen following recovery from an injury incurred during the indoor season), but the eight-time winner and 2021 Olympic champion Damian Warner (CAN) is of course back to try and secure a ninth victory. Warner sampled a few events at the Bryan Clay invitational decathlon in Azusa in early April, with a promising 100m and hurdles, and 15m shot. Despite being done by the pole vault, he stayed to the end of the competition to support Callum Newby break the 27-year-old Scottish decathlon record (not relevant to Götzis but I don’t care, so sue me).

Warner will likely meet Newby and others later this summer in Glasgow, as he seeks the Commonwealth title for the second time. Fellow Canadian Pierce LePage, the 2023 world champion and 2023 Götzis winner, also returns to Austria. This will be his first competition outdoors, with only a (rare) excursion over the indoor heptathlon to his name this year, winning the Canadian indoor title.

Dutch record holder and 2024 Olympics fourth-placer Sven Roosen (NED) is back in action, after a 2025 season which started late, and was then truncated during the World Championships decathlon. Roosen’s breakthrough competition, ahead of the Olympics, came in the 2024 edition of Götzis where he scored over 8500 points for the first time, before going over 8600 in Paris.

The tenth man on the Götzis podium in 2025, Jeff Tesselaar (NED) joins Roosen in the competition. Tesselaar set his PB of 8249 last year in Götzis and, while this is his first decathlon of the year, he has already achieved some excellent marks this season. He has equalled his hurdles and pole vault PB and set outright marks in his discus and shot (the latter at the World Indoors). Tesselaar had a spirited duel with Andrin Huber at the EU23 championships in the summer of 2025, taking silver behind the Swiss

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Heath Baldwin (USA) has made good on his college promise in his first few years as a pro, and that resulted in a silver medal behind Ehammer at the World Indoor Championships in Torun. The interesting thing about Baldwin’s performance in Poland – a PB of 6337 - was that he didn’t max out his signature events to get there. With a high jump of only 2.08m (compared to his usual heights over 2.10m) he achieved the score with improvements in a range of other events, suggesting improvements to come over ten events too.

Alongside Götzis veteran Kaul, the German contingent includes Amadeus Graber and Fred Isaac Fleurisson. Graber, the 2023 European U20 champion, actually started in Götzis in 2025, enjoying a strong 100m and long jump, but sustained an injury in competition which kept him out of action until the 2026 indoor season. Since then the 21-year-old has already made progress in improving marks with the senior implements we might have otherwise expected him to achieve in 2025. His first senior decathlon mark awaits him this weekend.

This is Fred Isaac Fleurisson’s debut in Götzis. He became the 59th German man to exceed 8000 points in decathlon, scoring 8005 at the annual age group meet in Bernhausen in 2025. His main area for improvement is the pole vault – he scored 8000 points with just a 4.40m vault.

As for Niklas Kaul (GER), he’s been working on his pole vault approach, so keep an eye out as to how that serves him on the second day. His decathlon best has been 8691 since 2019, but he has been chipping away at his speed events in 2024 and 2025, with improvements in his 100m, hurdles and long jump. Those shifts provide the opportunity for him to get above the 8700 points he came so close to when winning the world title as a 21-year-old in Doha.

The World U20 champion, Tomas Jarvinen (CZE) also participated in Götzis in 2025, but like Graber did not finish the competition due to injury. He had a very strong indoor season, with a heptathlon score of 6124 which would have been good for fifth place at the World Indoor Championships. However, because of the all-rankings approach to world indoor qualification, which prioritises athletes who competed consistently over the previous 18 months rather than those demonstrably in form at the time of the championships, Jarvinen could not qualify, because he did not have a senior decathlon result to establish a ranking position. The importance of a result including 400m, discus and javelin, none of which feature in an indoor heptathlon, is not clear. Like Graber, if he finishes this decathlon, it will establish his first senior decathlon mark. As a junior, his best of 8425 was just ten points short of Niklas Kaul’s then WU20 decathlon record.

With a GL category competition at home at Decastar, we don’t always see too many French athletes compete in Götzis. But Makenson Gletty (FRA) has good reason to compete in Austria. He is now training in Linz, having followed his coach Rudy Bourgignon from France to Austria. Bourgignon now has a leading coaching position in the Austrian Athletics Federation, and his squad now brings together Gletty, Verena Mayr (who also returns home from France) and 2023 European U20 silver medallist Matthias Lasch. Gletty competed in both the French and Austrian national indoor championships, winning the latter with a 6000+ heptathlon score. He did not finish the competition at the World Indoors in Torun but has had a few individual events outdoors to warm up for his 2026 decathlon debut in Götzis.

Götzis comes too early for Mayr and Lasch, both returning from injury, but Gletty instead brings a fellow Frenchman to the competition, Maxime Moitie-Charnois (FRA). The 22-year-old Moitie-Charnois is a contemporary of Graber, Huber and Jarvinen, and holds the equal second-best U20 indoor heptathlon score of all time. He scored 6015 in 2023, matching Sander Skotheim’s score as a junior, and second only to Jente Hauttekeete’s WU20R of 6062 (the Belgian unfortunately missing Götzis due to a stress fracture in his shin). MMC scored 8156 at the French championships in 2025, his first time over 8000 points.

The 2025 Rookie of the year Sammy Ball is, alas, also injured but 2025 Götzis debutant Lewis Church returns. In 2025 Church breached 8000 points for the first time when he won at Multistars and then improved his score a month later in Austria. His plans for his usual opening meet in Italy were interrupted this year by a small injury, and so Götzis will be his first decathlon of the season. Church also set 100m and 400m bests in Götzis in 2025, sprinting 11.00s exactly over the 100m, and running under 50s for 400m for only the second time in his career (the first a few weeks earlier).

With European Champion Johannes Erm choosing to open his season in Ratingen, the Estonian contingent in Götzis is led by Karel Tilga (EST). Tilga has the curious ability to give the impression that he’s having a tough year, while still churning out 8400 decathlons every season. His PB of 8681 makes him a global championship contender – and he has had plenty such championships experience - but the timing has never been quite right. The closest he has come has been fourth in Budapest, with that 8681 score. His individual events thus far in 2026, all stateside, have been modest. Good timing would make Tilga a contender for the European title later this year.

The challenge, of course, is first to make a national team since 8k decathletes roam the streets freely in Estonia. Rasmus Roosleht (EST) has the momentum so far in 2026. He had a good indoor season, winning the Tallinn competition in February and then competing in Torun. He set his decathlon PB of 8241 in Götzis in 2025, alongside a suite of PBs in individual events. Risto Lillemets (EST) had an unlucky start to the year, injuring himself in the long jump at the Tallinn indoor meeting, and not quite able to recover in time to take up his place at the World Indoor Championships. But he has already delivered a discus PB of 48.75m this season, a significant step up from his previous best of 46.90m.

Andrin Huber (SUI) also competed at Multistars this year, but that was a first tentative competition back after injury. However, one month on he is hopefully back on track and ready to score over 8200. The youngest of the Swiss contingent has had an uneven few years, returning brilliantly from injury in 2025 to win the EU23 title in a PB score of 8188, before succumbing to injury again. Finley Gaio (SUI), now training in Ulm with Dario Dester and coached by Christopher Hallman, has good memories of Götzis, breaking 8000 points for the first time here in 2023.

Jose Fernando Ferreira Santana (BRA) rounds off the Götzis field. The Brazilian placed second at Multistars behind Ehammer with a strong score of 8057, including a 400m PB of 48.57s. That represents a good recovery for JFFS, after his competition at the World Indoors Championships was, literally, knocked off course. He was on track for a 1000m PB, when he was rudely knocked to the ground by a stray pole falling onto the track from the individual men’s event. Other than the odd excited rabbit, no such disasters should befall the athletes this weekend at the Mosle Stadion.

HEPTATHLON

This heptathlon portion of this article starts with recognition of and tribute to World Indoor champion Sofie Dokter (NED), who is getting nowhere near the appreciation and recognition she deserves

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World Indoor title in a Dutch national record, a significant achievement in a country where the outdoor event has traditionally ruled. Runner up in Götzis 2025 with a PB over 6500. Three medals and four top four placings from every major championship pentathlon she has competed in since 2023. Fifth in the European Championships in Rome. Sixth in both the 2024 Olympics and 2025 World Championships. Still only 23 – and of course we should add the European age group medals she won in 2021 and 2023.

Sofie has had the privilege, or misfortune, depending on how you look at it, to be in the shadow of three different sets of athletes.

At home in the Netherlands, she is walking in the footsteps of Olympic silver and bronze medallists Anouk Vetter and Emma Oosterwegel (also competing this weekend), even though her PB is only 14 points lower than Oosterwegel’s.

In the age group competitions, she was in the shadow of Saga Vanninen, silver medallist to the Finn’s gold as an U20 and U23. That pattern continued at the Euro Indoors in Apeldoorn, although Dokter edged past Vanninen outdoors in terms of PB heptathlon score (6576 to 6563).

In Götzis in 2025, Anna Hall rightly earned the spotlight with her stupendous 7k score. But Sofie Dokter was the best of everyone else. And in Torun she was the best of them all. So while she might not have the highest heptathlon score on paper in the field, she starts as the favourite in Götzis.

One of her main rivals, Noor Vidts (BEL), will recognise some of what Dokter has experienced. Vidts, returning from a long spell of injury (her last combined event was her bronze medal heptathlon in Paris) also knows what it is like to be a step behind a country-mate who will be remembered as one of the greatest of all time. Perhaps it’s a Benelux thing.

Like Dokter, Vidts is a stealth heptathlete. She doesn’t dominate, nor does she have a single show-stopper event which crushes her opponents. Rather, she is good at everything, and suddenly with one or two events to go, you realise she’s upon you and about to streak past. Vidts has competed in some individual events so far this year, all terribly windy and hence with results that don’t tell us too much.

In 2025, Saga Vanninen (FIN) finally made the step up from precocious junior to serious contender. After her double victory indoors in 2025, winning both European and World indoor titles, Vanninen improved her heptathlon score significantly from under 6400 to over 6500 when winning the EU23 championships in Bergen. Her partnership with Erki Nool (and sometime training partner Yuma Maruyama) is going well. This will be her first combined events competition in 2026.

We haven’t seen the Tokyo heptathlon bronze medallist Taliyah Brooks in action in a multi since Japan, and she passed on her place at the World Indoor Championships (where she also won bronze in 2025). With Taliyah, when all goes well, she performs brilliantly, surging in the first event on each day of a heptathlon with her powerful hurdles and long jump. But such is her speed that she lives on the edge, and those surges can turn into no-marks.

This will be the only heptathlon Brooks does this year, and with a clean run (she has never finished a competition in Götzis), Taliyah is a contender for victory. For reference, Brooks’ PB is 6581, set when winning the bronze medal in Tokyo. World Athletics have decided that 6550 is the mark which will generate 40% of the field (some 10 athletes) at the Beijing World Championships.

The US squad in Austria also includes Allie Jones (now training with Hakim McMorris and Harrison Williams), Timara Chapman and Lexie Keller. Timara Chapman had a strong indoor season, with a pentathlon best of 4603, second only to Anna Hall domestically. However, Jones was higher in the rankings than Chapman thanks to her heptathlon scores the previous summer and took up the place vacated by Brooks’ withdrawal. This is Lexie Keller’s debut in Götzis, and she brings a PB of 6076 from Mt SAC this year.

Another athlete who has enjoyed the air above the Beijing heptathlon qualifying standard of 6550 is Olympic fourth-placer Annik Kalin (SUI). Kalin has been beset by injury, even getting in the way of her reduced workload when focusing only on long jump and hurdles. “Small wins” have been her goals following surgery in November. Kalin has finished in the top five in Götzis in the last two years, finishing second in 2024 when she went on to place fourth in both the European Championships and Olympics.

Swiss compatriots Sandra Rothlin and Liana Truempi (making her debut) also cross the border to compete in Götzis. Röthlin scored her PB of 6106 in 2025 in Götzis

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The most exciting debut in Götzis is that of Greek powerhouse Anastasia Ntragkomirova. If you haven’t had the delight of watching Anastasia previously (I first saw her compete as a 20-year-old at the 2023 Tallinn indoor meeting) then you’re in for a treat. Take the shot and long jump skills of Saga Vanninen, the passionate reactions of Adrianna Sulek-Schubert, and the artistic makeup eye of Auriana Lazrag-Khlass, all in one charismatic heptathlete. She finished fourth at the EU23 championships in Bergen and brings a best of 6163 points. The magic of Götzis will suit her beautifully.

Götzis is also a rehearsal for many athletes ahead of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, although such is the strength of English heptathlon (even with Wales taking Abi Pawlett out of the way) that there are no guarantees. Jade O’Dowda (GBR) is one of Great Britain’s strongest heptathletes, with a best of 6391 over seven events (from Tokyo in 2025) and a big indoor score of 4751 when she finished fourth in Apeldoorn. After a few individual events, this will be Jade’s first full combined event of the year.

While it is still only May, Ellen Barber (GBR) has achieved much already in 2026. She competed in three pentathlons in 2026, the first one point short of her PB, the second an improvement of 40 points, and the third 180 points better to take her to tenth place at the World Indoors. But, in her own words, she’s an outdoor girl, and loves the 200m and javelin. Her PB of 6037 from 2025 should be ripe for further revision.

Ysee LePhillipe (FRA) is the honorary Brit in the field, with a semester training at Loughborough. She delivered two almost identical pentathlon scores at the English and French indoor championships (4149 and 4150 respectively) and was third at the French outdoor championships in 2025, scoring a heptathlon PB of 5975.

Sienna MacDonald once again represents Canada in Götzis, having set a PB of 6148 at the meet in 2025. Maddie Wilson (NZ) has already won her national champs this year, with a first-time 6000+ score of 6059.

Tori West (AUS) made her debut in Götzis in 2024, and it gave her a PB of 6245. This year she has already scored 6162 to finish second at the Australian championships.

Beatrice Juskevicuite (LTU) holds the world lead at the time of writing, after winning Mt SAC for the second year in a row, and this year with a PB of 6323. Multiple NCAA champion Pippi-Lotta Enok (EST) lines up, as do EU20 silver and bronze medallists Sarolta Kriszt (HUN) and Enni Virjonen (FIN).

Sveva Gerevini (ITA) opens her heptathlon season after a successful indoor campaign where she scored over 4500 yet again, finishing seventh at the World Indoor Championships. Mariana Bento (POR) makes her Götzis debut, with sixth place in Multistars already under her belt this year and, after scoring 6119 in 2025, Erika Warff (SWE) joins the Götzis cast. Home favourite Chiara-Belinda Schuler (AUT) has had a strong start to her 2026 season, with PBs in her hurdles and high jump so far this year.

And finally, the Germans. The mighty throws of Vanessa Grimm and Marie Dehning. The giddy upward trajectory of Sandrina Sprengel, fourth at the World Championships in the same season she missed out on qualification for the EU23s. The debut of Emma Kaul, younger sibling of Niklas, PB of 6001 and fourth at the EU20s in Tampere. And, of course, the return of Sophie Weissenberg after suffering that heartbreaking ruptured achilles before her heptathlon even began in Paris.

The action begins at 1105 local time on Saturday 30^th May.

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