Gotzis Diary: Thiam at 7,013 points, Warner, 8591 points!

GOTZIS (AUT, May 28): Nafissatou Thiam moved to third on the world all-time heptathlon lists with a brilliant tally of 7013-points at the Gotzis Hypo-Meeting (IAAF CE Challenge). Thiam went out to 6.56m in the long jump before adding six metres to her javelin lifetime best with a national record of 59.32m, the second best javelin throw in heptathlon history with the new specification. She concluded her day with another PB in the 800m of 2:15.24 to become just the fourth athlete in history to break the 7000-point mark: Joyner-Kersee 7291, Kluft 7032, Thiam 7013, Nikitina 7007. After two no jumps, Carolin Schafer began her second day with a sizeable 6.57m PB in the long jump followed by 49.80m in the javelin and 2:14.73 in the 800m to add nearly 300 points to her heptathlon lifetime best with 6836-points while Latvia’s Laura Ikauniece-Admidina improved her national record to 6815-points courtesy of 6.64m in the long jump and 56.17m in the javelin. The top six finishers all set lifetime bests: Katarina Johnson-Thompson (6691) in fourth, Claudia Salman-Rath (6580) in fifth and US Erica Bougard (6502) in sixth. World U18 champion Geraldine Ruckstuhl, 19, broke the 32-year-old Swiss record with 6291 while there were also national records from Grit Sadeiko and Marthe Koala for Estonia and Burkina Faso respectively with 6280 and 6036. In the decathlon, Canada’s Damian Warner retained his title with a world-leading score of 8591 ahead of the Netherlands’ Eelco Sintnicolaas, who improved his Dutch record to 8539. Germany’s Rico Freimuth finished third in 8365 while there were PBs for Adam Sebastian Helcelet (8335), Pieter Braun (8334) and Mathias Brugger (8294) in fourth, fifth and sixth respectively. The top-15 decathletes broke the 8000-point barrier.