DECATHLON
In the 2022 edition of the Ratingen combined events meeting, the decathlon was dominated by Simon Ehammer, as the Swiss broke the world decathlon long jump best for the first of two times that season. Indeed, Ehammer’s 110m hurdles from that meeting is – inexplicably since it was only 13.75s – the most viewed reel of all time on the Decathletes of Europe Instagram page, with over 600k views. This year Ehammer is touring the Diamond League circuit – he won the long jump in Oslo this week – and having redesigned his early season to accommodate the three fouls of his long jump in Götzis, he is focusing on the Swiss champs decathlon a few hundred miles south in Basel.
So, the Germans have their zehnkampf almost all to their selves, and there are no distractions from their 2019 world and current European champion, Niklas Kaul.
Kaul has had a curious few years. His win in Doha in 2019 was a triumph of composure and focus while those around him were losing theirs. It catapulted him to a position in which he might not have yet expected to find himself, in the year where his splendid duel with Johannes Erm at the European U23s would have otherwise been a climax. Kaul’s win at home at the European championships in Munich last year over Ehammer was, similarly, a testament to the German’s poise, rather than a dominant array of points.
With his PB of 8691 from Doha, Kaul is still a way off the 8800+ territory Kevin Mayer and Damian Warner have set as the standard for global titles, and at European level he has the likes of Ehammer, Estonia’s Karel Tilga and now Norway’s Sander Skotheim hot on his heels around 8500. Indeed, if we measure strictly by PB, Kaul is no longer Germany’s top decathlete, following Neugebauer’s astonishing 8836 to break Jurgen Hingsen’s record from the 1980s at the NCAA champs this month.
So, Ratingen is an opportunity for Kaul to embark on a decathlon where he can be in command. The stakes are low since he is already qualified for the World Championships in Budapest.
Kaul does not typically perform at his best at the early season decathlons, and he often says that the extra weeks to the championships in July or beyond make all the difference.
The clues to look out for are the marginal improvements Kaul has been able to make to take his individual marks to the next level. He has edited out his early career weaknesses – he will never be the fastest decathlete in the field, but now he is far from being the slowest – but he needs a few further improvements if he wants to return to the top of a global podium on the basis of his score, and not just his championships temperament.
Behind Kaul and Neugebauer, there is an almighty tussle for the potential third place in a German team for Budapest and that comes to a head in Ratingen this weekend. Manuel Eitel, who took bronze behind Kaul’s gold at the U23s in 2019, is not competing but he has one hand on that place following his 8351 PB in Götzis (which currently qualifies him by ranking). But Eitel is injury prone, so there is value in others getting close to him and putting themselves in contention for selection, and several of them are in action this weekend.
Tim Nowak would have in the past been the natural choice and brought a spirited challenge to Ehammer in the vertical jumps here in 2022. Nowak is not there yet this year, and there are others who could step up. Top of that list is Felix Wolter, whose achievements at Pitt University haven’t received the credit they deserve, setting him up to win the Defi’athlon in Montpelier last month with a massive PB of 8170. Both he and Nowak are just outside the rankings quota for Budapest, so have scope to step up. Kai Kazmirek is also in that territory, but currently side-lined with back problems.
Jannis Wolff has been threatening an 8000+ score for the last two years, but every time he comes close another injury seems to get in the way. Nico Beckers was the German revelation in Ratingen last year, improving his PB by 400 points to just under 8000. Whether Beckers has another 200 points lurking in his portfolio is not clear but given his lack of international competition compared to his teammates, competing at Ratingen gives him a very special boost. Jan Ruhrmann completes the German contingent.
The athlete most likely to give Kaul a run for his money in Ratingen is Thomas Van der Plaetsen. He made his return to decathlon at Multistars in April following his serious injury in Tokyo and was going extremely well against Karel Tilga until the high jump, where pinching in his heel hampered his 400m warm-up, and he withdrew.
The Belgian has flagged one of the flaws in the championships qualification system for athletes returning from injury, which juxtaposes an inflated qualification standard with a requirement for two combined events marks to establish a ranking position.
A careful trajectory back from injury means that two full decathlons may be too risky to squeeze into a few months. And the risk is no ranking, and hence no qualification, despite potentially scoring a respectable and competitive mark in April, May or June. For Van der Plaetsen, to have any chance of competing in Budapest, he needs 8460 or above. If he can replicate his PB of 8430 from Götzis in 2021, it would be the 8th best score of the year so far. But because the rankings are so badly designed, he would still be left at home.
Estonian decathlon is wide open this year, with Karel Tilga the only athlete who has logged a decathlon mark above 7800. So, although Maicel Uibo, Johannes Erm and Janek Õiglane are currently ranked above him, there is a great opportunity for European Indoor bronze medallist Risto Lillemets to step up. Risto had been due to start in Götzis but postponed his first decathlon due to a small injury. The Estonian Federation had indicated they will select the winner of the upcoming Estonian championships for Budapest if they are within the rankings quota. Lillemets is within that range, so he has a lot to gain in his next few competitions.
A few familiar faces make their first appearance on the combined events tour this year, Adam Sebastian Helcelet of Czech Republic and Jorge Urena of Spain. Qualification for Budapest is a long shot for both of them, but they are both expert in surfing the rankings system and packing in solid performances in a short period of time. A decent score and placing here may get them back in the game. Rik Taam of the Netherlands also makes his season debut, accompanied by Sven Jansons and U20 competitor Jeff Tesselaar. Dani Bertschler of Austria is competing, and Arthur Prevost from France comes to Ratingen from the Diamond League, where he competed in the “triathlon” in Paris recently.
Max Attwell of New Zealand is an interesting athlete to follow and, but for a twist of fate, might have found himself attempting to bolster his PB of 7635 to qualify for Budapest.
Attwell is the current Oceania champion, which he won in 2022 when setting his lifetime best. Until last year, area champions were given a guaranteed place at the world championships if their standard was deemed acceptable by World Athletics.
Ken Mullings benefitted from the rule, his 2022 NACAC win setting him up to go to Oregon and improving competition in the Bahamas wonderfully since then.
However, after the USA won the NACAC heptathlon title and were able to take four heptathletes to Oregon, the rule was changed to avoid big federations undermining the original intent of the mechanism, which was to ensure representation from under-represented areas.
Now, the area champion is only eligible if there is no-one from that area attending – and that rules out Max, given the strong Australian presence in qualification. The threshold for acceptable standard seems to be around 7700 – as for many things, how these decisions are made are a mystery – so there’s no harm in Max seeking to boost his PB in case rules change in the night, as is so often also the case.
Finally, the World U20 silver medallist Jacob Thelander starts his second decathlon of the season, his first in Multistars brought to an unplanned halt after he contracted food poisoning in the course of the first day. He reports he is feeling good, and strong, and ready to make another push towards 8000 points in the senior event.
HEPTATHLON
While the Ratingen decathlon has layers of interest and objectives beyond what the podium might look like, if you prefer a straight-out competition, then the heptathlon will be the event for you.
Before we get to that, the international star power of course comes from Nafi Thiam, in a season where you feel that something sensational might be coming.
There’s little to be gained in Thiam doing an early season heptathlon. She needs no qualification or ranking performance, and Anna Hall’s dalliance with 7000 points in Götzis would mean anything significantly short of that by Thiam now is likely to skew narrative in the run-up to Budapest. Instead, Thiam is holding her cards close over seven events, and testing out five this weekend. Rather like Kaul, those tests may give us clues where Thiam is seeking to improve into new territory.
Back to the heptathlon, and it’s a pleasing match-up between Germans Sophie Weissenberg (the 2022 winner here), Carolin Schafer and Vanessa Grimm, Netherlands’ Olympic bronze medallist Emma Oosterwegel, Ireland’s Commonwealth silver medallist Kate O’Connor and 2021 Ratingen winner Georgia Ellenwood of Canada.
For each of these athletes there are dials to be turned up and down, and where those dials are set will dictate the shape of competition. Schafer and Oosterwegel at their best would leave the others far behind, but we don’t yet have signals that they’re in that sort of shape. Weissenberg and Grimm have been on improvement trajectories and making championship teams, Weissenberg ahead of Grimm so far this season. O’Connor and Ellenwood ooze determination and when they can gather momentum in a competition, they push their limits. However, both have fragile physical elements to those limits, and both have had many a promising competition compromised by injury.
We might throw three other athletes into that mix too – Esther Turpin and Celia Perron of France and Verena Mayr of Austria. Turpin has moved to the USA, and she’s had a strong season, winning the Bryan Clay meet in Azusa in April. Verena Mayr – who won Ratingen in 2019 – is on a long road back and has already managed our expectations about whether she can qualify for Budapest, echoing TVDP’s frustration about the disproportionate impact the qualification system has on athletes returning from injury. Perron is showing signs of returning to the form that took her to the European Indoors in 2021, with a heptathlon PB in Montpelier recently.
The Australian heptathlon power duo of Taneille Crase and Tori West have each already had a competition in Europe this season, and both will be fully acclimatised when they start this weekend in Ratingen.
In recent years, West had been leading the charge towards major championships and the Commonwealth Games, breaking 6000 points in the final few weeks before Covid shut down sport. Since then, injury has got the better of her. In the meantime, Crase has picked up the slack, competing in Birmingham, also breaking 6000 points, and securing an invitation to Götzis last month. West has also been in Europe since she won the Portarathlon last month, and both athletes have landed 5900 scores this season. The cluster of athletes currently above them who are likely to be in the 6200 to 6500 range give them an excellent framework for further improvement.
USA’s Shaina Burns returns for her second time in Ratingen, and since she was here last year she has improved hugely, scoring 6130 to finish second at NACAC recently. Marijke Esselink also had a super debut in Götzis this season. While her teammates focus on the Swiss champs in Basel, Lydia Boll will be looking to follow in the footsteps of Celine Albisser and Sandra Rothlin, both of whom set PBs in Götzis, and where Albisser joined Annik Kalin, Geraldine Ruckstuhl and Caroline Agnou in the current 6000-point club.
Among the rest of the German field, no-one is likely to challenge Weissenberg, Schafer and Grimm for championships places, but there are potentially age group championships on the horizon for Serina Riedel and Lara Siemer, both of whom competed at the European U20s in 2021.
Anna-Lena Obermaier had her debut in Götzis last month, but her year of improvement in 2022 started in Ratingen, and she performs well in front of a home crowd. The other Germans in the field – many of whom we might expect to see in the Thorpe Cup team in August – are Marieke Rösing, Janina Lange, Laura Voss, Paula de Boer, Hilke Thamke and Wiebke Oelgardt.