Decathletes livestream ‘garden clash’
– World record holder Kevin Mayer came out on top as three of the world’s top decathletes resumed international competition on Sunday without leaving their training facilities.
Mayer, German Niklas Kaul and Estonian Maicel Uibo followed the lead of pole vaulters in May by adding another innovative livestreamed event to the depleted track and field under the “Ultimate Garden Clash” banner.
After winning, Mayer told AFP it was good to return to competition. “I was stressed all day like I was before a big championship. Especially since we’d never done this before; it was a total unknown,” Mayer said by telephone.
“I’m the world record holder, so you have to take responsibility for your title. I had everything to lose and nothing to gain, so I put a lot of pressure on myself, I didn’t know if I’d be good at it.”
Mayer was at a track in Montpellier in France, world champion Kaul indoors in his home town Mainz, Germany, and Uibo in Clermont, Florida.
The constraints ruled out several disciplines, including Kaul’s speciality the javelin. Instead, the men opened by attempting to clear a pole vault bar set at 4m as often as possible in 10 minutes.
They then put the shot for 10 minutes, scoring for each throw beyond the 12m, and finished with a gruelling shuttle run, with a point for every lap round two cones placed 20m apart, in five minutes. Each man had a helper to keep score and shoot the video and Mayer missed the start because he was getting a drink.
World Athletics denied his request for an extra 25 seconds vaulting but he still took the lead with 17 clearances, while Uibo managed 15 and Kaul 14.
Mayer increased his edge in the throwing event, where the competitors had to run and retrieve their shot after each effort. He reached at least 12m 28 times, while Kaul scored 22 and Uibo 20.
Kaul won the shuttle run, with 27 40-metre laps, for a total of 1 080m instead of the 1 500m decathletes usually run in their last event.
Mayer, despite slowing up in his final lap, ran just one fewer to win comfortably. “I had fun,” he said. “Under the circumstances, it was cool to have a competition. But I’m a decathlete first and foremost, that’s not what I’m training for at all. All I want to do is get back to being a real decathlete.” –