Dennis Leyckes repeats his father’s South American success story
Gustav Schwenk for the IAAF
19 October 2000 - As a German proverb says, "The apple never falls far from the tree." This is also true for 18-year old Dennis Leyckes. His father, Dieter Leyckes, was second in the European Junior Championships in Duigsburg in 1973. In decathlon, of course. The elder Leyckes, who comes from a farm near Krefeld, one of the most important cities in the German athletics scene, achieved his personal best (7835 points) when placing fourth in the 1976 Olympic Trials in Dortmund. "Unfortunately," he says, "I could not take part in the Olympics, but for this reason I was able to win the CISM Championships (military championships) in Rio de Janeiro 25 years ago."
At 18, his son Dennis Leyckes, who competes for the colours of TSV Bayer Uerdingen, the same club as three-times world record holder Jürgen Hingsen, has already come close to the "family record" with 7802, just 33 points behind his father. In the last competition before the World Juniors, he obtained a personal best of 5.20m in pole vault, his favourite event.
Dennis’ sporting career started with football until, at the age of ten, as his father puts it, "he came slowly to multiple events." Leyckes senior is a professor of physical education in a Krefeld high school, and could of course give his son some useful tips. However, Dennis’ main coach is Horst Meuer, professor of physical education and French in the same school as his father.
In 1999, Dennis bettered the German Under-18 record with 7795 points. His performances in this occasion and his 1999 best performances by event were respectively:
100 m 11.33 11.05
LJ 7.08 7.08
SP (5 kg) 14.58 15.00
HJ 1.96 1.96
300 m 35.32 35.32
110 H (91 cm) 14.68 14.03
DT (1,5 kg) 40.75 45.60
PV 4.60 4.90
JT (600 Gr) 53.45 56.56
1500 m 4:24.58 4:24.58
Given the above performances, one can understand that Dennis Leyckes was very sad during the 1999 World Youth Championships, as multiple events were not contested there. In the second edition of the World Youth Championships, scheduled for next year in Debrecen (Hungary), multiple events will be on the programme for both boys and girls.
The young decathlete is an apprentice in Industrial Mechanics with the chemical giant Bayer AG, whose plant is in Krefeld-Uerdingen. His 1.84m make him one of the smallest German world-class decathletes. But his father says, "Olympic Champion Erkki Nool is also not much taller than 1.84m." For such a young athlete, his technique is already surprisingly good. On the occasion of a decathlon test match in Val de Reuil, France he achieved 7802 points to top the junior world lists for 2000.
The comparison between his best decathlon prior to the World Junior Championships and his Santiago performance shows that Dennis improved in almost all events:
12./13. August Val de Reuil - 18./19. October Santiago
11.02 10.98
6.98 7.22
12.42 13.46
1.97 1.95
48.92 47.59
14.48 14.61
38.29 39.52
5.05 4.80
53.59 54.76
4:28.77 4:33.10
At the end of the first seven events, Dennis Leyckes had accumulated a lead of 184 points
over his Val de Reuil points standing. "It is also because of the strong competition
here," he commented.
His mother followed her son’s decathlon on the IAAF web site. "It is wonderful, how fast the results are posted up." She was most impressed by her son’s time over 400m: "How can he run so fast!" Dennis himself was surprised: "I expected a time of 48.40 at best."
The only setback for Leyckes, the best decathlete so far in the history of the World Juniors, came unexpectedly in his favourite event the pole vault. The 18 year-old, whose models are Sergey Bubka and Dan O’Brien, was hindered like all his colleagues by a blustering wind, and thus lost points in precisely that event which would have allowed him to take another step towards the 8000 points barrier. For today’s 4.80m, he obtained less points than in Val de Reuil where he had cleared 5.05m. In the javelin he had on the other hand set another personal best, making it clear that he had every chance to break the Championship Record set by his countryman Eric Kaiser (7762 points in Plovdiv 1990). At the conclusion of the 1500m, which he ran in 4:33.10, he had improved his best mark by 95 points for a total of 7897.
The final act allowed Dennis Leyckes to repeat his father Dieter’s decathlon success story on South American soil.
