Mayer breaks decathlon WR

16 SEP 2018 REPORT TALENCE, FRANCE

MAYER BREAKS DECATHLON WORLD RECORD

World champion Kevin Mayer broke the decathlon world record in Talence France, scoring 9126 at the final IAAF Combined Events Challenge of 2018.

Following a strong first day on Saturday, Mayer started the second day of competition with a tally of 4563 points, 140 behind Ashton Eaton’s first day total when he set his 9045 world record three years ago at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing. But Mayer is notably a strong performer in the five events on the second day of a decathlon.

The world indoor champion continued that momentum throughout the second day. Mayer won the 110m hurdles in 13.75. Despite the -1.1m/s headwind, Mayer’s time was just 0.04 outside the PB he set in Paris earlier this year.

Mayer opened the discus with 46.41m before improving that to 48.72m in round two and 50.54m in round three it was easily his best ever discus mark within a complete decathlon and was the farthest throw of the day.

The world record was looking more and more likely with each event, but first Mayer would have to safely navigate his way through the pole vault, a discipline that has caught out many decathletes over the years.

Following his opening clearance at 5.05m, Mayer passed 5.15m and then easily cleared 5.25m. He then carried on to 5.35m and 5.45m, five centimetres better than his best ever vault within a combined events competition.

After one failed attempt at 5.55m, he opted to stop vaulting to save his energy for the two remaining events.

“Now we can start talking about the world record,” said Mayer, having tallied 7503 points after eight events.

The Frenchman recorded his fourth win of the second day courtesy a massive third-round throw of 71.90m in the javelin, more than a metre farther than his previous best.

With one event to go, Mayer had already amassed 8421 – a score that eventually would have been enough to win by 111 points. He needed just a 4:49 clocking in the 1500m to break Eaton’s world record. Mayer’s PB for the distance was some 31 seconds faster than that.

Exhausted and encouraged by a massive crowd, he covered the final event in 4:36.11 to tally 9126 points, improving Eaton’s previous mark by 81 points. It was the biggest single improvement on a decathlon world record since Tomas Dvorak added 103 points to the mark in 1999.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time,” said Mayer after becoming the first Frenchman to hold the decathlon world record. “We live for moments like this that are simply incredible. I couldn’t cry. I don’t have any more tears left because I was crying so much before the 1500m.”

Abele, who finished second with 8310, some 816 points behind Mayer, overtook Norwegian Martin Roe in the IAAF Combined Events Challenge standings to clinch his first series title.