Belgium’s Thomas Van der Plaetsen is one of the rising stars of European athletics after his decathlon gold medal at the 2009 European Athletics Junior Championships and the 20-year-old multi-eventer is aiming to continue his success this summer.
Following his national heptathlon record of 6020 points, achieved when finishing sixth in the 2011 European Athletics Indoor Championships in March, he has been invited to compete at the famous Hypo-Meeting in the Austrian town of Götzis on 28-29 May, where he is likely to be the youngest competitor in the decathlon.
Van der Plaetsen started the year with the twin targets of going over 5800 points indoors for the heptathlon and also 7900 points for the decathlon.
However, after his achievement in Paris, his second Belgian record of the winter after scoring 5901 points to win the Belgian title in Gent a month earlier, the latter figure looks a little modest.
The Belgian decathlon record of 8142 point stands to Frédéric Xhonneux from 2008 and could well be in danger, if not in Götzis then at the European Athletics U23 Championships in Ostrava, Czech Republic later this summer.
“As the 2009 European junior champion, I would like to see myself as one of the medal contenders in Ostrava. Competing in Götzis, along with some of the world's top decathletes, is an important step in my preparation for the European U23 Championships,” said Van der Plaetsen, who has proved that he has a talent for rising to the big occasion.
The 2011 European Athletics U23 Championships will be held between 14-17 July.
Van der Plaetsen added that he has recovered quickly from an ill-timed bout of measles that interrupted the first two weeks of his planned two-month training camp in South Africa, upon which he embarked in mid-March shortly after his Paris outing.
As a second year computer science student, Van der Plaetsen also has the Universiade in Shenzhen, China, (between 12-23 August) in his diary and will be bidding to also get on the podium there.