Anna Hall leads the world lists in pentathlon this year and, as the sole 5000/7000 athlete in the field, will begin as hot favourite for the world indoors. But Hall will be competing in a stadium which respects her craft while also hoping that the gold goes elsewhere. For Adrianna Sulek-Schubert and Paulina Ligarska, competing in front of that same crowd brings both enormous home support and heavy expectations.
The full field of thirteen (following Abi Pawlett’s withdrawal) ranges from world record contenders to athletes competing in their first major championships, and indeed their first pentathlon.
ANNA HALL (USA)
We of course begin with Anna Hall, a superstar of combined events and one who is able to make the leap into broader mainstream athletics appreciation.
Anna’s three heptathlon scores in 2025 were 7032, 6899 and 6888 when winning Götzis, the US Champs and the World Championships in Tokyo respectively. Those were the three best heptathlon scores of the year and, if we could clone Anna, she would have won all three medals in Tokyo with those scores.
World Athletics’ season top lists go back to 2001 and only twice in that period has a single heptathlete had the three top scores, Carolina Kluft in 2004 and 2006.
Indoors, Anna was part of the chain of events which led to the greatest pentathlon in history at the 2023 European Indoor championships in Istanbul. Only five women have ever scored over 5000 points in pentathlon. Natalya Dobrynska was first in Istanbul in 2012 with the previous world record of 5013, Katarina Johnson-Thompson reached 5000 points exactly in Prague in 2015, and then Anna gave us 5004 at the US championships in 2023.
Adrianna Sulek-Schubert of Poland had already declared she wanted to attack the world record when she scored 4702 in Tallinn earlier that year, and it seemed Anna would get there first. But of course, in Istanbul Ada delivered an inspired score of 5014 to beat Dobby’s mark by a single point, only for Nafi Thiam to cruise across the line a few seconds later and take the mark to 5055.
But Anna Hall is not the same athlete now as she was in 2023. She was clear with us on her return from devastating injury in 2025 that what went before was irrelevant.
We were starting again. And “again” proved to be something transformational. Starting again was 7032 points in Götzis. Starting again, at least for now, means much less reliance on the raw speed of her hurdles, 200m and long jump, and a much greater choice of the sources from where she can construct her overall score.
In 2023, her heptathlon score of 6988 included a 12.75m hurdles and a 13.90m shot. In 2025, her score of 7032 included a 13.19m hurdles and a 14.86m shot. Her shot during the Tokyo World Championships was 15.80m.
Anna has done one pentathlon this year, 4831 points at the US Championships. A very promising 60m hurdles, 8.16s compared to her best of 8.04s. As ever, a strong high jump, 1.90m. A sub-14m shot of 13.89m, good, but nowhere near her best of 15.80m. A satisfactory long jump of 6.20m. And a – for Anna – pedestrian 800m of 2:07s. A leisurely, if you will, 4831 points.
There are a few scenarios to think about for this weekend.
The first is that Anna pushes forward with her terrifying potential and takes us into 5000 points and WR territory. Two combined events WRs in a single championships would provide incredible leverage for the combined events community to insist on more opportunities, more coverage and more support.
Another scenario is that Anna remains at 4800-4900 standard. Having made it all look so easy, other athletes have been inspired to step up into that “leisurely” territory. There’s a true, open fight, and medals are thrashed out around 4800 points.
Hall is a class apart in the heptathlon. But moving between seven events and five events can have a concertina effect. The little gaps between competitors have room to stretch into clear and dominant leads over seven, and ten, events. Over five events, the gaps are squeezed, and it can be easier for things to change quickly.
And we are in Poland, where the same audience who respect Hall’s greatness will also be hoping for her defeat.
ADRIANNA SULEK-SCHUBERT (POL) AND PAULINA LIGARSKA (POL)
Adrianna Sulek-Schubert is the fabulously talented, dramatic, emotional, chaotic yet determined nature of athlete who makes combined events so entertaining to watch. Rather like Kevin Mayer, watching Ada compete is as much an exercise in resilience for the viewer as it is the athlete.
But there is also a dark side for an athlete who chooses to express herself so fully. During and after her recent pregnancy, every choice Sulek-Schubert made was publicly critiqued and criticised. Whether or not she should have allowed herself to become pregnant. Whether or not she should continue training into her pregnancy. What nature of training she should or should not be doing. Whether what she was actually doing could be classed as training or simply gentle exercise. Whether she should continue to be funded when not training. Whether her plans for resumption of training were too soon, or of the right nature. Whether her ambitions were ambitious or deluded.
The commentary, grounded in the sexism all female athletes will recognise, on a world class athlete’s professional, technical and medical decisions was sobering. The scrutiny was so intense that Sulek-Schubert issued several statements standing firm in her choices and, frankly, telling everyone else it was none of their business.
Ada has been the poster athlete for these championships in Torun, and after 4458 indoors in 2025, she showed she was on track to return to some good scores. At the Copernicus Cup in the same stadium last month she scored 4667, a world class pentathlon by any measure and her own sixth best performance of all time.
Her high jump is still a little low (1.77m to her best of 1.92m) and her long jump still a little short (6.08m to her best of 6.62m). But her shot remains strong and has edged up this year by a few centimetres to 14.55m, presumably fuelled by the thought of lobbing it at the purveyors of unsolicited comments on what she chooses to do with her body. There’s nothing wrong with her 800m either, a healthy 2:08.
So, a few more weeks, and a home crowd willing her to victory, may take Sulek-Schubert back up to the 4800-4900 area and challenge for gold.
Meanwhile, in the background Paulina Ligarska has been blooming late into an accomplished pentathlete. While her heptathlon score remains mid-6200s, indoors she has had a steady progression over the last few years. Ligarska is a cool, elegant athlete, with particular strengths in the high jump, shot and 800m. Curiously, she performs particularly well in Poland, indoors or out.
Ligarska first reached 4500 points in pentathlon in 2022. First came 4336 in Clermont-Ferrand, 4301 in Tallinn, and then 4593 at the Polish Championships in Torun.
She first reached 4600 points in 2025. In Tallinn 4452, then 4500 again at the Copernicus Cup in Torun, and finally 4615 at the Polish Championships.
She then achieved 4700 points in 2026. A podium in Tallinn, for the first time, with 4416. Then 4676 at the Copernicus Cup, and the pinnacle of 4705 at the Polish Championships.
Some of that can be put down to the natural progression of a season, but the same pattern can be seen outdoors. Ligarska’s top four scores in heptathlon were all set in Poland, either at the Polish championships in Warsaw or at the Wiesław Czapiewski Memorial in Nakło nad Notecią.
The magnifying factor of a home competition will be much greater at a home championships, and this would be the perfect opportunity for Ligarska to extend further towards 4800 and potentially a medal.
KATE O’CONNOR (IRL)
The 2025 indoor season belonged to two women, Saga Vanninen of Finland and Kate O’Connor of Ireland. Vanninen is injured and unable to defend her title, but with a score beyond 4900, she would have been one of the women stepping up to challenge Hall and her contemporaries over 5000 points.
Kate O’Connor has not had the spotlight which Vanninen has experienced, given the latter’s unchallenged dominance of age groups. During that period O’Connor has, however, evolved herself from the athlete with the big javelin who rallied on the second day of a heptathlon, into one of the best heptathletes and pentathletes in the world. “I want to be world class in every event,” she once said in an interview, and she’s well on the way to achieving that goal.
O’Connor is the world indoor and outdoor silver medallist, behind Vanninen in Nanjing in 2025 and behind Hall in Tokyo later last year. Indoors, her progression went from under 4400 points in 2023, to 4683 (Tallinn), 4781 (bronze at European Indoors) and 4742 (Nanjing) in 2025. Outdoors, she improved from under 6400 to over 6700 in heptathlon.
Every one of her relevant PBs comes from 2025 at earliest, and in 2026 she has laid down two early warning markers: an 8.21s hurdles PB and a 6.50m LJ PB in Dublin.
O’Connor is a legitimate challenger for a medal, and gold if that colour is to be found at the 4800-4900 standard.
SOFIE DOKTER (NED)
Sofie Dokter of the Netherlands has also been omnipresent on podium steps for pentathlon. Silver behind Vanninen at the European Indoor Championships in 2025, and bronze at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow in 2024. She has a best of 4826, on a par with Hall’s best score this year.
Dokter is a shade slower than Sulek-Schubert and O’Connor over the hurdles, but her jumps are strong (1.89m and 6.61m). Championships seem to suit Dokter and she has the ability to improve her 800m when a medal is at stake. Dokter often finds herself in the shadows, but at the age of only 23, she has already placed sixth at both Olympics and World Championships in heptathlon, and her best outdoors is approaching 6600 points.
Dokter is a contender for a medal, of all colours.
SVEVA GEREVINI (ITA)
The Italian national record holder, Sveva Gerevini, brings a stealthy pentathlon to competition, and is a solid all-rounder. None of her individual marks stand out, but often as the end of the competition approaches, she finds herself close to medals and can bring herself into contention with her brilliant 800m (2:08, and her indoor best is an outright record).
Gerevini placed fourth at the World Indoors in Glasgow and was only pipped for bronze due to Sofie Dokter delivering a determined and well-timed improvement to her own 800m time. She was sixth at her home European Championships in Rome in 2024.
Her pentathlon personal best is 4559, and she has scored 4439 (Tallinn) and 4449 (Italian championships) in competition already this year.
SZABINA SZUCS (HUN)
For a while it seemed that Szabina Szucs would be excluded from the World Championships field, due to the rankings-based approach to qualification. Rankings are based primarily on outdoor scores, and only one indoor score may count. That rightly precludes rankings being inflated even further than they are at present by indoor scores, but it can also prevent the best indoor performers of the year from participating at the indoor championships.
Szucs’ heptathlon score is still work in progress (just over 6000 points) and that constrained her ranking position. She is an excellent pentathlete, consistently among the top scorers on the indoor circuit – eighth so far in 2026, fourth in 2024. Happily, spaces freed up in the top 14 and the young Hungarian made the cut.
This year she scored 4494 to win in Tallinn, and 4571 at the Copernicus Cup, the latter very close to her lifetime best of 4588. She has this year improved her 60m hurdles best to 8.31s, her shot to 13.51m and her 800m to 2:11.25, all of which suggests that 4600 is on the way this weekend.
SANDRINA SPRENGEL (GER)
In the two years after she won European U20 gold in Jerusalem in 2023, Sandrina Sprengel improved her heptathlon score from 5958 to 6260 in 2024, and to 6434 in 2025. Over the same time period, she improved her pentathlon score from 4187 to 4455. Her current heptathlon best was enough to take her to fifth place at the World Championships in Tokyo in 2025, especially rewarding since she had to miss the EU23 championships in Bergen with injury.
Sprengel is an athlete on the rise and has several events with potential to grow. For example, while she boasts a 1.83m high jump, a 14.29m shot and a 6.47m long jump, her indoor hurdles are 8.38s (8.64s best so far this year). The 800m is also an event where it can take time for young athletes to prioritise improvement over the more technical events (Saga Vanninen’s recent improvement a case in point). Sprengel’s 800m is still only around 2:15 (2:17 indoors), so there is plenty more to come.
Sprengel has done one pentathlon so far this year, scoring 4292. At some point the next step of progression will kick in for her over 5 events, and her 4400 could become 4600. Whether that’s at these championships, or at some point in the future, Sprengel is one to watch.
ANASTASIA NTRAGKOMIROVA (GRE)
Ntragkomirova is an exciting young athlete from Greece, who placed fourth at the EU23s in Bergen last year. Her heptathlon best is 6163, also set in 2025, and she has competed several times in pentathlon in Tallinn. Her current indoor best is 4176, but with significant scope for growth.
Anastasia’s pentathlon profile is like a bell curve: slow over the hurdles (improved to 8.61s this year) and the 800m (her best is 2:28) but with three powerful events in the middle. Her high jump is world class at 1.80m, her shot at the top end of combined events standards, with 16.09m, and her long jump best is 6.44m.
In Bergen, she climbed from 16th place to bronze medal position in the first six events but lost out on a medal to a faster half-miler.
Ntragkomirova is a mesmerising athlete to watch. Every moment is etched on her face, from delight to disgust, and all emotions in-between. Like Auriana Lazraq-Khlass, she plays with makeup as part of her battle uniform. Look out for her elaborate eye design, her whimsical changes of hairstyle between events and, of course, the SpongeBob SquarePants socks.
ALLIE JONES (USA)
Allie Jones is a late addition to the field, following withdrawal of the Nanjing 2025 bronze medallist Taliyah Brooks. This option was open to the USA since they had multiple athletes qualified and declared three to allow for the scenario where one withdrew. Jones is a good pentathlete, with a best of 4528. That was achieved in the season in which she last did a pentathlon, back in 2024, and in the meantime she has enjoyed competition in Götzis, and a 6367 heptathlon.
Jones is particularly strong in hurdles and long jump, 8.17s and 6.46m respectively.
ELLEN BARBER (GBR)
Ellen Barber is an experienced international athlete who has competed at Decastar, Multistars, Arona and Mt SAC (and a veteran of the European Combined Events Cup in Lutsk in 2019) but this is her first major championships.
She’s had a strong indoor season and, after a gap of 5 years between pentathlons, she came within one point of her lifetime best in Tallinn, before setting a new mark of 4207 at the UK championships in Glasgow at the start of March.
BEATRICE JUSKEVICIUTE (LTU)
The Lithuanian was 8th at the European Indoors in Apeldoorn last year, where she set her current PB of 4413 points. She is an excellent hurdler, holding the Lithuanian national record outdoors, and a strong shot putter. So far this year she’s competed in four individual events, but Torun will be her first full pentathlon of the season.
MARTHA ARAUJO (COL)
The ranking used for qualification draws primarily on outdoor performances, and Martha Araujo has had an excellent last few years. She has enjoyed back-to-back wins at Decastar and set the current South American heptathlon record of 6475 at Götzis in 2025. She has numerous South American titles and was second in long jump at the indoor area champs recently, with a PB of 6.71m. She does not, however, have a pentathlon mark nor a 60m hurdles mark to her name so this will be fresh territory for the Colombian.
The heptathlon action starts on the morning of Sunday 22th March.
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BY GABBY PIERACCINI
