Switzerland ruled the combined events at the prestigious Götzis Hypo-Meeting this weekend with Simon Ehammer and Annik Kalin taking the plaudits in the decathlon and heptathlon respectively.
And the similarities didn’t stop there. Both athletes set world leads and national records of 8778 points and 6726 points respectively to become the first ever Swiss winners in Götzis. And both athletes excelled in the long jump.
Big decathlon breakthrough for Ehammer
Ehammer amassed the best ever first day score in decathlon history with 4764 points thanks in no small part to a world decathlon best of 8.51m - also a world lead - in the long jump which yielded 1194 points.
Ehammer extended his overall lead over world champion Leo Neugebauer from Germany with a 13.48 clocking in the 110m hurdles before Neugebauer began to make some inroads into Ehammer’s lead which had extended out to 271 points.
As expected, Neugebauer made up ground on Ehammer with 50.77m in the discus compared to the world indoor champion’s corresponding mark of 41.09m to close the gap to 72 points. Ehammer regained some of his cushion by clearing a timely 5.20m in the pole vault, 10 centimetres higher than Neugebauer.
Neugebauer outperformed Ehammer in the javelin - 58.46m to 54.38m - but not sufficiently enough to put the German in a viable position to challenge Ehammer for the overall victory in the concluding 1500m.
Ehammer kept Neugebauer within his sights throughout and the Swiss star, who crossed the finish-line 3.89 seconds behind the German in the 1500m in 4:43.22, was rewarded with victory in a world lead of 8778 points, adding more than 200 points to his previous lifetime best and Swiss record of 8575 points from Götzis last year.
Neugebauer finished second with 8730 points with his German teammate Niklas Kaul, the 2022 European champion ahead of Ehammer, surging up the leaderboard in the last two events to finish third with 8528 points having been 18th after day one.
Kaul concluded his competition with his typical flourish: 78.21m in the javelin, a mark which only one other decathlete came within 10 metres of this afternoon, and then a rallying 4:23.67 in the 1500m.
Two of Europe's most exciting combined events prospects also finished inside the top-10. Reigning world U20 champion Tomas Jarvinen from Czechia scored a national U23 record of 8400 points in his first completed decathlon as a senior to finish seventh with former European U18 and U20 champion Amadeus Graber from Germany scoring 8345 points on his debut to finish ninth.
Jarvinen was also named 'Rookie of the Year' in the decathlon, an honour in Götzis which recognises the best young athletes in each competition.
Over 6700 points for Kalin
Annik Kalin provided the first part of a Swiss double in Götzis with victory in the heptathlon, also with a national record and world lead of 6726 points to become the first Swiss winner of the heptathlon at this meeting.
Kalin was in second behind world indoor champion Sofie Dokter from the Netherlands after the first day before she stormed into pole position with a massive, albeit marginally wind-assisted, mark of 6.96m in the long jump for 1159 points. This would have been an outright Swiss record and an improvement on the 31-year-old meeting record had it not been for the following wind of 2.2 m/s.
This proved the key result for Kalin although her lead did diminish over the course of the last two events with 2020 Olympic bronze medallist Emma Oosterwegel - who is a renowned second day performer - throwing 52.50m in the javelin and concluding with a 2:09.19 clocking in the 800m, the fastest time of the day.
Oosterwegel moved from fifth up to second over the course of the last three events with an overall lifetime best of 6705 points, leapfrogging her Dutch compatriot Dokter who also set a lifetime best of 6627 points to finish third overall.
Seven of the top-10 finishers all set overall lifetime bests including Sveva Gerevini who was fifth in an Italian record of 6413 points on the day of her 30th birthday.
Further down the field, 2024 European U18 champion Enni Virjonen from Finland also set a lifetime best of 6189 points to finish 13th to be named 'Rookie of the Year.'
Photo courtesy of James Rhodes