Ashton Eaton in the heptathlon 60m at the 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Sopot (© Getty Images)
Ashton Eaton completed a perfect start for ‘The Eatons’, equalling his personal best of 6.66 with a stylish win in the 60m, the first event of the heptathlon.
He also equalled the determination showed by Brianne Theisen-Eaton in the women’s pentathlon and is now already 49 points ahead of his world record 6645 set in Istanbul at the IAAF World Indoor Championships two years ago.
On that occasion, he was then timed at 6.79 and the fate of the possible fourth straight world indoor record lies very much with the next event, the long jump, where Eaton achieved the strongest result of his 2012 series, 8.16m.
As expected, Damian Warner is in second place having run a season’s best of 6.75 in the 60m, just 0.01 seconds off his 2010 PB. The 2013 world bronze medallist has never competed in an indoor heptathlon before, but is clearly looking for a medal here.
Oleksiy Kasyanov, always strong in the first events, was third with an equal season’s best 6.88 and world leading athlete Eelco Sintnicolaas also had a successful start in 7.01, a season’s best as well. The Dutch athlete won the 2013 European Indoor Championships in Gothenburg and is fighting for a medal here too.
German Kai Kazmirek set a 7.02 personal best for fifth place and Andrei Krauchanka of Belarus ran a 7.12 season’s best for sixth place. Belgian Thomas Van Der Plaetsen clocked a 7.13 personal best and is trying to push himself into the top three together with Krauchanka here.
Pascal Behrenbruch of Germany, the 2012 European decathlon champion, was eighth in 7.23.
Mirko Jalava for the IAAF
