European Athletics (EAA) – News – Men’s & women’s combined events

European Athletics continues its 2012 End of Year Review with the combined events.

Women’s Heptathlon
Jessica Ennis had been the poster girl for the London 2012 Olympic Games and, despite all this pressure on her shoulders, she still rose to challenge magnificently to the challenge in front of an expectant home audience.

Ennis got off to a superb start on the opening morning of the athletics programme when she sped to a 100m hurdles national record of 12.54, which itself would make her the fifth fastest hurdler in the world in 2012 and the fastest European.

She went into new territory in two other events during the two days she was in action, running 22.83 in the 200m and throwing 47.39m in the javelin, before finishing with a total of 6955 points and a winning margin of over 300 points.

It was also a personal best by 49 points, her second national record of the year – after winning in Götzis with 6906 points little more than two months before – and her Olympic feats were a key factor in her being voted the 2012 European Athlete of the Year.

The fight for the other two medals in London involved three women: Russia's 2011 World Championships gold medallist Tatyana Chernova, Germany’s Lilli Schwarzkopf and Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Yosypenko.

Schwarzkopf finished second with a personal best score of 6649 points, after the initial fright of being disqualified after the 800m for leaving her lane too early although she was reinstated upon appeal, with Chernova slightly disappointed to take the bronze with 6628, 10 points ahead of Yosypenko's new personal best.

Chernova might have been expected to take the silver medal, and perhaps challenge Ennis more closely, after scoring 6774 to finish second in Götzis and her second best result ever but she did get some compensation at the end of the season when she won IAAF Combined Events Challenge for the fourth consecutive year and took the first prize of $30,000.

None of the London medallists competed at the European Athletics Championships, preferring to focus on the Olympics, instead the honours there went to France's Antoinette Nana Djimou, who got off to a great start in Helsinki by clocking the quickest hurdles time and personal best of 13.11.

The overnight leader with 3785 points was Yosypenko but Nana Djimou was just behind her with 3739 points and a strong second day to come.

A big lifetime best with the javelin of 55.82m effectively sealed her victory and she eventually added more than 100 points to her previous best total with 6544 points. The busy Yosypenko, who had also finished third in Götzis, finished second with 6387 points while there was a good improvement by Latvia's 20 year-old Laura Ikauniece to take the bronze with 6335 points.

Ikauniece is just one of three potential European stars of the future who emerged in 2012 and could mature to being challengers for the 2014 European title.

Along with the Latvian, The Netherlands’ Dafne Schippers (like Ikauniece, born in 1992) and Great Britain’s 2012 World Junior Championships long jump gold medallist Katarina Johnson-Thompson (born in 1993) all competed in London, finishing ninth in 6414, 12^th in 6324 and 15^th in 6267 points respectively.

It is worth remembering that Schippers and Ikauniece were first and third at the 2011 European Athletics Junior Championships; while Johnson-Thompson took the 2009 IAAF World Youth Championships title when Ikauniece was second.

Men’s Decathlon
There were no medals at the Olympic Games for Europe's top decathletes but beyond London it was a successful year for at least two of the continent's leading multi-faceted athletes.

Belgium’s Hans Van Alphen had good wins at the famous Hypo-meeting in Götzis, Austria, and in the French town of Talence at the end of the season, two of the five major multi-events competitions on the international calendar other than the major championships, while Germany's Pascal Behrenbruch took the gold medal at the European Athletics Championships with a personal best of 8556 points.

Van Alphen, now 30, surprised in Götzis where he had an inspired two days and finished with a national record of 8519 points.

He registered personal bests in the 100m, long jump and high jump to lead after the first day with 4334 points and then added further bests in the 110m hurdles and pole vault on the second day.

However, he could never relax as The Netherlands' 2010 European Athletics Championships silver medallist Eelco Sintnicolaas had a strong second day as well and finished just 13 points behind his neighbour with a Dutch record of 8506 points.

“I did not believe this result; it's incredible. I expected 8300 points but 8500 points is a dream come true," said the stunned Val Alphen, after his tally which eventually ended up as the second best European performance of the year.

His score was only beaten by Behrenbruch at the European Athletics Championships, an event Van Alphen decided to miss as he might have sensed that he had a chance of an Olympic medal, where the German scored 8558 points.

Ukraine's Oleksiy Kasyanov held the lead after the first day in Helsinki with 4352 points but Behrenbruch, whose marks included a personal best of 16.89m in the shot, wasn't too far behind with 4291 points.

Behrenbruch finally got in front after the eighth event, when he cleared a pole vault personal best of 5.00m, and throwing the javelin more than 15 metres than his rival in the penultimate event effectively secured him the title with only the 1500m to go.

Kasyanov, who had also taken the silver medal in the 2012 World Indoor Championships heptathlon back in March, finished a distant second with 8321 points.

At the Olympic Games, Behrenbruch was still recovering from his efforts in Helsinki and could only finish a modest 10th, with Kasyanov in seventh place, and it was Van Alphen who lead the European challenge in London.

He showed that his Götzis performance was no fluke by finishing fourth with 8447 points, just 76 points away from a medal.

Van Alphen ended the season with a victory in Talence with 8293 points, which was enough to earn him victory in the season-long IAAF Combined Events Challenge and his consistency earned him a cheque for $30,000.

In what was a decent year for Europe's decathletes, if hardly vintage, in addition to the three men mentioned – Van Alphen, Behrenbruch and Sintnicolaas – who went over 8500 points, another four scored 8300 or better.

The 2012 European top 30 lists can be found here.

 

European Athletics (EAA) – News