Kälin and Neugebauer victorious in Ratingen as meeting records fall

Annik Kälin broke the meeting record and her own world lead to win the heptathlon at the Stadtwerke Ratingen Mehrkampf-Meeting, while world champion Leo Neugebauer delighted the home crowd to win the decathlon at the World Athletics Combined Events Tour Gold meeting on Sunday (28).

Kälin improved on her own Swiss record to win with 6819, having set three meeting records in individual disciplines within her winning series, while Neugebauer won the decathlon with 8573 after breaking meeting records in the shot put and discus.

Kälin, the recent Götzis winner with 6726, had already been on course for another major score after a superb first day. The fourth-place finisher at the 2024 Olympic Games opened her campaign with 12.60 in the 100m hurdles, breaking the meeting record with the third-fastest hurdles performance ever recorded within a heptathlon and a time just 0.06 shy of Jessica Ennis-Hill’s world heptathlon best.

She followed it with 1.75m in the high jump and 14.00m in the shot put, then ended the day as she had started it: with another meeting record. Her PB of 23.00 in the 200m gave her a running tally of 3974, 115 points better than her opening-day score in Götzis.

Kälin started day two in the same way she had bookended day one, producing another meeting record. Her 6.75m (-1.1m/s) in the long jump equalled a mark that had stood for 20 years and was almost half a metre farther than anyone else managed in the discipline.

She was second overall in the javelin with a season’s best of 47.85m, keeping her on track to improve her own world-leading mark, then rounded out the weekend with 2:11.93 in the 800m, again the second-best performance of the day in that discipline.

It gave Kälin a winning score of 6819, breaking Sabine Braun’s meeting record of 6787 that had stood since 1997. It also moves her to 20th on the world all-time list.

USA’s Erin Marsh maintained her second-place position throughout the second day and ended the weekend with a PB of 6305. In the battle of the German heptathletes, Sandrina Sprengel came out on top, finishing third overall with 6218, ahead of Anna-Elisabeth Ehlers with 6193 and Emma Kaul with 6152.

Three-time Olympic champion Nafi Thiam tested her form in the high jump, clearing 1.84m, and shot put, throwing 14.64m.

Neugebauer holds off Gletty

Neugebauer took the lead in the second discipline and maintained it to the end. The German opened with 10.81 in the 100m, then leapt 7.67m to win the long jump. He followed it with a meeting record of 16.95m in the shot put, before clearing 1.97m in the high jump and clocking 47.85 in the 400m.

In that final discipline on the first day, USA’s Harrison Williams was initially disqualified before being reinstated. His 46.74 was a meeting record and kept him in contention for a podium finish.

Neugebauer’s day-one tally of 4482 was 150 points down on the score he achieved at the same stage in Götzis, where he went on to finish second with 8730. France’s Makenson Gletty, a non-finisher in Götzis, sat second overnight with 4380.

Neugebauer started the second day with 14.69 in the 110m hurdles. Gletty made some inroads into the German’s lead with a PB of 13.84, just 0.03 behind Devon Williams, who was fastest of the day.

But Neugebauer responded in the discus, extending his advantage with a meeting record of 53.32m, almost 11 metres farther than Gletty. He then equalled his season’s best of 5.00m in the pole vault and threw 57.03m in the javelin to head into the 1500m with a comfortable lead.

He needed that buffer, as Gletty is one of the strongest 1500m runners in the combined events world. The Frenchman duly lived up to that reputation, clocking 4:26.76. Neugebauer finished further down the field in 4:43.02, but it was enough to secure the victory.

Neugebauer finished with 8573 – the best score in Ratingen for 10 years – while Gletty held on to second place with 8458. Devon Williams was third with a PB of 8402, just ahead of US compatriot Harrison Williams, who scored 8345.

Norway’s 2025 world leader Sander Skotheim was a non-finisher. He ran 10.94 in the 100m, jumped 7.32m in the long jump, threw 14.07m in the shot put and cleared 1.91m in the high jump before retiring from the competition. Skotheim felt discomfort in his left calf after the long jump and, having had surgery in January on a ligament at the bottom of his left foot, opted not to risk aggravating the injury.

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