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.
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.
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.
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 (GBR) 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.
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.
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 30th May.
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BY GABBY PIERACCINI
