“Indoors it’s a completely different beast,” said Ash Moloney after winning bronze in his first ever heptathlon, at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade in 2022.
“I reckon it’s more tiring than the decath. Decath, you’ve got some events where they’re kinda chill. Like the discus, you just go out there, have a chuck. Sit down. Have a chuck. Whereas this, it’s all the power events – next event’s power, next event’s power, next event’s power. So, it’s different, but I love it.”
Olympic bronze medallist Ash Moloney kicks off the international combined events season in earnest, headlining the X-Athletics meeting this weekend in Clermont Ferrand. He’s matched by the triple world champion, once indoors and twice out, Katarina Johnson-Thompson in the pentathlon. And our fingers are crossed for a world best in the inaugural edition of the women’s indoor heptathlon.
EYES ON THE WORLD INDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS
The World Indoor Championships take place in Scotland, home of Decathletes of Europe, in March, and qualification for the competition is a little different from the outdoor championships. While World Athletics have committed to an increase in the field size to 14 for Nanjing in 2025, thanks to the campaigning work of Fredrik Samuelsson, for now the field remains at 12. And there are four different ways to qualify for those 12 places:
- Five athletes from the 2024 indoor world lists (actual top lists, not rankings)
- Five athletes from the 2023 outdoor world lists (max 1 per country)
- A wildcard for the 2023 Combined Events tour winner
- A final other place that World Athletics can award to whomever they wish – hugely inappropriate in terms of transparency and fairness when the field is restricted to 12 and rankings points are available for all 12.
For those who have not qualified for the Olympics through the automatic standard, and looking for rankings points from the World Indoors to boost an outdoor score around 8200-8400 (decathlon) or 6200-6400 (heptathlon), Clermont Ferrand this weekend, and Tallinn next weekend, will see much jostling for position at the top of the 2024 world indoor lists, for a slot in Glasgow.
MEN’S HEPTATHLON
While Moloney headlines the field, Australia’s greatest ever male combined eventer has struggled since Tokyo and Belgrade, prone to injury and dipping in and out of competition. He started several decathlons in 2023, but did not finish them, which means he is unranked and needs a path to qualification for Paris.
He’ll have a Belgrade rematch with the World Indoor silver medallist and two-time winner of the X-Athletics competition, Simon Ehammer of Switzerland. In 2022 Ehammer broke the world best for a heptathlon long jump at this meet, and in 2023 he came close to breaking his nose in the pole vault. Little bit nervous about what he might break this time if we’re honest.
But if there’s one athlete who loves the prospect of an Indoor championships, it’s Spain’s Jorge Urena. He won gold in Glasgow at the European Indoors in 2019, silvers in 2017 and 2021, and clearly loves a Scottish championships. Urena is the master of hauling himself out of an extended period of injury, and finding form when it matters. He did so in 2023, delivering a lifetime best decathlon in Ratingen to bring himself into contention for the World Championships, but succumbed again before he could make it to Budapest. A good score in Clermont Ferrand this weekend will put him in the driving seat for Glasgow.
France’s Makenson Gletty had a glorious end to 2024, close to the Olympic qualifying standard, and full of confidence from his win in Talence. He’s had plenty of strong performances here in Clermont Ferrand but is typically overlooked due to the presence of the world record holder, Kevin Mayer, in individual events. There’s no Mayer this weekend – he is focused 100% on securing an Olympic qualifying score without breaking himself in the process – and so French attention should rightly be fully on Mak. He made significant progress outdoors in 2023 – he should do the same indoors in 2024. This crowd loves Simon Ehammer, but they will love Makenson Gletty more.
While focus might be on Moloney, Ehammer, Urena and Gletty, keep an eye on what’s happening with the Germans. While Leo Neugebauer is closing in on 9000 and Niklas Kaul is consistent beyond 8400, there’s a real battle for position behind those two.
Manuel Eitel has been at the head of that, with his 8351 from Götzis last year and second place in Talence, but there has been a wave of young Germans breaking 8000 over the last few years. That posed a challenge in particular to Tim Nowak, who would normally expect to be in contention as the third German. Nowak was enormously unfortunate to be affected by some freak incidents during and ahead of recent championships. But Nowak is by no means down and out – at the German Championships last weekend he scored over 6000 for the first time in his career. Eitel and Nowak took first and second place at this competition in 2020, and one or more of them could shake up the podium.
Behind the big names there’s a suite of athletes who stepped up their game in 2023. Lorenzo Naidon of Italy and Jente Hauttekeete of Belgium both cracked 8000 outdoors and should be able to add more to their indoor marks too. Hauttekeete had a super competition here in 2023, finishing second to Ehammer.
Andrin Huber of Switzerland and Maxime Moitie-Charnois of France are two emerging names to look out for too.
Huber was third in the European U20 championships in Jerusalem last summer, where the trio of Amadeus Graber, Matthias Lasch and the Swiss all stormed 8000. Moitie-Charnois became only the third athlete in history to score over 6000 at the U20 heptathlon last year, behind Hauttekeete and equalling Sander Skotheim. Luc Brewin of France is also one to watch, with a strong performance at the EU23 championships in Espoo last year.
Dario Dester of Italy lost most of 2023 to injury, so we’ll be watching with interest to see if the Italian record holder, indoors and out, is back to his best.
And there’s an interesting little dynamic developing in the world of Czech decathlon. Ondrej Kopecky has been the top decathlete in recent years, continuously on the edge of landing the decent scores of which he’s capable at a championships. But in the meantime, Vilem Strasky is catching up, and catching up fast. The athletes train together under Roman Sebrle, and both are in action this weekend.
There is, I suspect, a French byelaw which declares the X-Athletics event is only recognised as an official meet if Ruben Gado or Bastien Auzeil are in attendance, either participating or commentating. Happily, they are both competing this weekend, and so all is well with the world.
The 2021 European U20 bronze medallist Teo Bastien leads the remainder of the home contingent.
WOMEN’S HEPTATHLON
While the male decathletes compete over seven events, in parallel a small field of female decathletes will be doing the same. The French are the world leaders in promoting women’s decathlon at national level. Following the success of the international open decathlon last summer in Évry-Bondoufle, the X-Athletics programme includes an indoor, or short track, heptathlon for women.
Short track heptathlon is the truncated version of decathlon. Short track pentathlon is the truncated version of outdoor heptathlon. Short track heptathlon – the one with the pole vault – is different from outdoor heptathlon. As women stop waiting to be given permission to participate in the longer events and just get on with it, the decisions made decades ago to create different pathways in the combined events now come back and complicate the terminology.
There are also some technical issues to overcome – the World Athletics combined events scoring tables don’t include marks for women’s 1000m or 60m, and female decathletes have in the past been met with many reasons why it is too difficult to correct. One would think combined events are bereft of number-loving statisticians. But the support of big meets and Federations make all the difference.
If Simon Ehammer or Ash Moloney were to sidle up to a world record this weekend, there would be no question of the conditions being suitable for ratification. So, if we see a world record in the women’s heptathlon this weekend, and the only thing preventing ratification is the absence of official WA points tables for women, that would not be a good look for a sport which prides itself on gender parity.
The field is a small one, just six, but it’s a significant one. It includes Jordyn Bruce of the USA, who was second at the French open decathlon meet last summer, and second at the US decathlon championships in Mt SAC in 2023. It also includes Lauren Kuntz, who was instrumental in organising the US champs last year, hoping that USATF will follow the leadership of the French federation in recognising a national title in women’s decathlon. The remaining athletes are French, including Adeline Audigier, a key force in women’s decathlon in France, and Noemie Desailly who has competed at the X-Athletics meeting previously in the pentathlon. Roseva Bidois and Anaik Previdi complete the field.
WOMEN’S PENTATHLON
Finally, the pentathlon, which takes place on Sunday. And it brings the star power, in the shape of Britain’s world champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson. KJT is not intending to seek to regain the World Indoor title she won in Birmingham in 2018, the last time the World Indoors were in the UK. However, a run through of some or all the five events will be a gentle start to her quest for an Olympic title in 2024.
KJT is among friends too, here in Clermont Ferrand, a familiar face to many of the French athletes from her time training with Bertrand Valcin in Montpelier.
Beyond KJT, the eye is of course drawn to the better-known names in the field, including the Austrian heptathlon record holder and bronze medallist behind KJT in Doha in 2019, Verena Mayr. However, Mayr has had a tough few years with injury. While hopefully her return progresses positively, it is entirely possible she won’t be the top Austrian in the field. The 2023 University Games champion, Isabel Posch, had a whirlwind of a year in 2023. Posch grasped the opportunity extended to her to compete as a home athlete in Götzis in May, breaking 6000 for the first time and landing two more 6000 scores, at the University Games in Chengdu and in Talence. Her pentathlon PB is certainly due for revision.
Spain’s Maria Vicente is also returning to combined events this year, after focusing on individual events in 2023 on return from injury. Although she has secured titles in the horizontal jumps, her combined events CV does not reflect her ability and 2024 will hopefully be the year when she can fill those gaps.
Carmen Ramos joins Vicente and Urena in the Spanish contingent. The 2022 African champion Odile Ahouanwanou is here, as is the Italian pentathlon record holder Sveva Gerevini. Gerevini and her counterpart Dario Dester have been a notable absence from top level competition in the last year, but with the European Championships in Rome later this year, they have a big home stage for which to aim.
There is a huge Swiss contingent in the pentathlon field, and the line up narrates the changes in Swiss heptathlon in recent years The Swiss record holder Annik Kalin is not competing, but the women who put Swiss combined events on the map Geraldine Ruckstuhl and Caroline Agnou, are on the entry list. However, while Ruckstuhl and Agnou have had their recent years interrupted by injury troubles, in the meantime a powerful surge of young Swiss heptathletes have come through: Mathilde Rey, Celine Jansen, Katelyn Adel (now recruited by the 2019 European Indoor silver medallist Tim Duckworth to his new coaching gig at the University of Alabama) and Lydia Boll. They will be all over this pentathlon.
There’s no Leonie Cambours, Esther Turpin or Auriana Lazraq-Khlass, but the French have some promising athletes in the pipeline, most notably Elisa Pineau and 21-year-old Pauline Bikembo. Celia Perron has not quite yet managed to make her progression indoors from 2021 stick, but she improved her heptathlon PB and several individual events in Chengdu and Talence in 2023, and we’ll see what she can do this weekend, alongside another X-Athletics favourite, Annaelle Nyabeu-Djapa.
However, while the Americans head the women’s heptathlon line up, there might just be a wee upset in the pentathlon podium too. Michelle Atherley has been consistently in the mix for places in the US (outdoor) heptathlon squad, the hardest heptathlon team in the world to make. Qualification strategy is key for athletes behind Anna Hall, and the US athletes are plenty aware of what they need to do.
Finally, the Dutch duo of Nadine Broersen, on her way back to top level competition after the birth of her son, and Marijke Esselink complete the international field, along with the 2021 World U20 bronze medallist Szabina Szucs of Hungary, and Lenja Heusser of Switzerland.
