Alas, our preview of the 2026 Tallinn heptathlon starts with some bad news.
The three-time winner of this competition, 2025 heptathlon and decathlon world leader Sander Skotheim, has withdrawn with injury. Skotheim is arguably the top male combined eventer in the world at the moment. but his detour for surgery means there will be a new world indoor champion this year in Poland, in the last of the cluttered post-COVID world championships backlog.
So that resets our assessment of the heptathlon competition in Tallinn this weekend. Great Britain’s Sammy Ball is also a late withdrawal, the rib issue which kept him out of the England Championships in Sheffield a few weeks ago not yet fully resolved.
RISTO VERSUS RASMUS
That naturally takes us to the home favourites, and potentially an Estonian dust-up. The natural framing is the rivalry of Risto versus Rasmus, Lillemets against Roosleht.
Two 8000-plus point decathletes, both with the misfortune to be in the queue behind Johannes Erm, Karel Tilga, and Janek Õiglane in recent years for championship places. But both have much to bring to the competition.
Lillemets is a European indoor bronze medallist from Istanbul in 2023, third behind then European record holder Kevin Mayer and current European record holder Skotheim. Lillemets is consistently over 6,000 points and has a good record here in Tallinn. He was 1st in 2021 with 6089 (his PB), 2nd in 2022 with 6006, 2nd in 2020 with 5996, 4th in 2023 with 5915, and 5th in 2019 with 5749. He suffered an unfortunate no-height in 2025. Many of his outright individual PBs have been set at this meeting.
The new kid on the block, at least in the 6,000-point club, is Rasmus Roosleht, a contemporary of Skotheim and Olympic champion Markus Rooth. He was fifth at the European U23s in 2023 in Espoo where the Norwegians ran amok and had his first 6,000-point heptathlon in Apeldoorn in 2025 at the European Indoor championships, where he placed seventh.
Lillemets and Roosleht both have PBs a touch over 6,000 points: 6089 and 6062 respectively. Their profiles over seven events also have similarities. The duo are of similar speed over 60 metres, and neither is strong in the long jump. In a head-to-head, Roosleht will pull ahead in the third event with his mighty 16m shot, a distance which he has already exceeded this indoor season.
The 60m hurdles, on the second day, is where Lillemets fights back, at least in theory, with a sub-eight second best. But Roosleht has already run a PB of 8.12s this year, while Lillemets’s best is 8.14s so far.
They have comparable high jumps – Lillemets a height or two above Roosleht at best, but both comfortable over two metres.
Lillemets is a seasoned 5-metre vaulter (5.10 PB), with Roosleht catching up and currently at 4.90.
The final event is Lillemets’s domain. While he doesn’t have the kamikaze finale of Skotheim or Erm, he does have a fast 2:37. Roosleht has more work to do to bring his 1K below 2:45.
The two are therefore truly evenly matched. But at this competition last year, Roosleht came in with a PB of 5940 and left with a PB of 6062. With a standout shot and improved hurdles PB – always a signifier of technical progression – under his belt, Roosleht may now be the marginal favourite.
Both Lillemets and Roosleht are registered for the World Indoor Championships in Poland, Lillemets currently in 14th place via rankings, and Roosleht in joint 15th. Skotheim’s abandoned season brings Lillemets into the 13 places filled by rankings, and Roosleht theoretically into contention for the 14th discretionary place. But there’s a cap on two athletes per member federation, and unless Roosleht can overtake Lillemets in rankings, he will be the excess Estonian.
THE ESTONIAN DECATHLON FACTORY
This is Tallinn, and so there are more than two Estonians in play in the heptathlon this weekend.
Hans Christian Hausenberg, the barefoot high jumper from the World Youth Championships in Cali in 2015, is brilliant but inconsistent. He invariably dances on the line between catastrophe and breakthrough, bringing scintillating speed over 60m and hurdles, super jumps (7.96m, 2.04m, 5.31m) and a strong shot. His limiting event thus far has been the 1000m, or the 1500m outdoors.
Hausenberg finished fourth at the World Indoors in Belgrade in 2022, after winning the competition in Tallinn in 2022 with 6143.
His Belgrade PB profile shows his range: 6.86 (60m), 7.96 (LJ), 13.62 (SP), 2.02 (HJ), 7.99 (60mH), 5.30 (PV), 2:57 (1000m).
At top form, Hans Christian Hausenberg will stand on the top of the podium, as he did in 2022. But only if he brings all seven events.
The next athlete in the Estonian decathlon factory is Andreas Trumm. He competed at the European U20 championships in Tampere last year, unfortunately logging three fouls in the long jump but continuing to the end to score 6581. This is his first year as a senior, and he established his first heptathlon score earlier this year with 5646. Expect him to bring a strong vault – he set a pole vault PB of 5.28 in Tallinn this month. Trumm has a place at the University of Miami from autumn 2026.
Marten Roasto, who placed 8th at this meeting in 2025 with 5457, further bolsters the Estonian contingent. He has already set a PB of 5539 this year competing in Lasnamäe Athletics Hall, the previous home of the competition, and has improved almost 100 points since last year’s competition.
THE AWAY TEAM
While one would be forgiven for thinking this was the Estonian champs, there is also a strong away team in town.
Devon Williams of the USA leads that contingent, back in action after some time out in 2025. Williams is currently based in Texas, coached by 2000 Olympic bronze medallist Chris Huffins, with training partners who include 2024 Olympic bronze medallist Lindon Victor and 2025 Decastar third placer Kendrick Thompson.
Williams is a master of rebirth. Many remember his heartbreaking DNF at the pole vault in Doha 2019, when he was based in Georgia. He returned to top-level decathlon four years later when he placed third at Multistars in 2023, improving further in 2024 to within three points of his 2017 PB of 8345.
Over the last year he has spent time training in the military and returns to embrace the indoor season. It’s been a while since Devon was in action over seven events. His best is 6177 from 2017, and his few heptathlons since then have not been close. But he’s a fast guy, suited to indoors, and with more experience than anyone else in the competition. Barring injury, there should be no reason why he cannot get back over 6000 points and into contention for the podium this weekend.
The Czechs are here: Vilem Strasky, Ondrej Kopecky and Adam Havlicek. Strasky and Kopecky are both currently qualified for World Indoors through their rankings.
Strasky has been the best all-rounder among the Czechs in the post-Adam Sebastian Helcelet landscape, consistently over 8000 points outdoors and pushing over 6100 indoors. If Kopecky can get to the pole vault, he’s in the mix too, bring a PB over 6000. Havlicek is on an improvement curve, competing at the European U23s in Bergen last year, where he finished seventh. His heptathlon PB is getting close to 6000, currently 5815.
The dynamic Spanish duo of Andreu Boix and Jorge Davila are here, both of whom participated in the X-Athletics meeting in Clermont Ferrand in 2025, placing 11th and 12th respectively. The French meeting is experiencing a number of challenges at the moment, and therefore the Tallinn meeting is the only top class indoor combined events meeting available for athletes. Boix and Davila are joined by Tayb Loum, and all three have similar lifetime bests in the heptathlon: 5787, 5742 and 5726 respectively. In 2023, Loum dislocated his shoulder during the pole vault in the decathlon in Arona but still finished the competition and achieved the qualifying mark for the European U20 championships later that year.
Angelos Andreoglou could be the surprise in the field. The Greek is now just a handful of points below 8000 in decathlon, and his heptathlon PB of 5723 predates that improvement in 2024. He had a good competition in Tallinn in 2024, placing seventh and enjoying a strong vault over 5m.
Hungary’s Zsombor Gálpál is also just a few points below 8000 outdoors, and his heptathlon mark is due to be re-written to catch up, currently a modest 5548 from the World Indoors in Nanjing last year.
Finally, while the field typically has a few Finns, in 2026 the sole representative is Joni Heikkinen. He brings a decathlon/heptathlon combination of 7799/5566.
You can find the full details of the meeting here.
By Gabby Pieraccini
