Decathlon winner Leo Neugebauer at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 (© Getty Images)
The World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 provided a perfect example of how much a decathlon can change from one discipline to the next.
Canada’s 2021 Olympic champion Damian Warner, for example, withdrew just before the competition got under way. Defending champion Pierce LePage pulled out after four events. World leader Sander Skotheim was disqualified after a hurdles mishap. And long-time leader Kyle Garland was finally overtaken after eventual winner Leo Neugebauer unleashed a five-metre PB in the javelin.
Neugebauer’s 64.34m throw in the penultimate discipline proved to be the pivotal moment. It meant the German went into the final event with a 15-point advantage over Garland, safe in the knowledge that he was a better 1500m runner than his US opponent.
He did more than enough in the final event to hold on to gold, scoring a season’s best of 8804 to finish ahead of Puerto Rico’s Ayden Owens-Delerme (8784) and Garland (8703).
Garland had taken the lead after the second discipline, having clocked 10.51 in the 100m and jumped 7.92m in the long jump. Neugebauer was in seventh at that stage, opening with 10.80 in the 100m and 7.62m in the long jump. Simon Ehammer and Skotheim, the two most recent winners of the world indoor title, both jumped 7.97m to move into second and third respectively, ahead of 100m winner Owens-Delerme.
Garland and Neugebauer were the top two performers in the shot put, throwing 17.02m and 16.70m respectively, enough to put them in first and second place overall. A 14.50m throw meant that Skotheim dropped slightly to fifth, but the Norwegian made up ground in the high jump, topping the group with 2.14m to move into second overall.
Garland maintained his lead after the high jump, clearing 2.11m. Neugebauer jumped 1.99m, but Ehammer wasn’t so fortunate and failed to register a valid height, marking his exit from the competition.
A 48.73 run in the 400m kept Garland at the top of the leader board at the end of the first day ahead of Skotheim (47.86), Puerto Rico’s Owens-Delerme (46.46) and Neugebauer (48.27).
In the 110m hurdles at the start of day two, Garland extended his lead over Neugebauer, clocking 14.30 to 14.80. But Skotheim was disqualified for knocking down a hurdle in an illegal way, taking the pre-event favourite out of the contest.
Neugebauer dominated the discus with a 56.15m throw to reclaim second place behind Garland (48.06m) and ahead of Owens-Delerme (46.12m). The German closed the gap further after clearing 5.10m in the pole vault, a height matched by Owens-Delerme.
Garland's 4.80m vault was enough to keep the US all-rounder in the lead by 53 points, but the javelin turned the contest on its head. Neugebauer added 5.35 metres to his PB with a 64.34m effort, moving him into the lead ahead of Garland, who threw 59.78m. It gave the German a 15-point advantage going into the 1500m.
The German ensured he stayed ahead of Garland in the final discipline to maintain his overall lead, finishing in 4:31.89 to bring his winning tally to 8804. Owens-Delerme produced a 4:17.91 run to elevate him into the silver medal position with a national record of 8784, while Garland claimed bronze with 8703.
Niklas Kaul, the 2019 world champion who unleashed a monster throw of 78.19m in the javelin, finished fourth with 8538. European champion Johannes Erm was fifth with 8431, ahead of US duo Heath Baldwin (8337) and Harrison Williams (8269).
Jon Mulkeen for World Athletics
