Ashton Eaton of the United States competes in the Men's Shot Put in the Heptathlon during day one - WIC Istanbul (© Getty Images)
As expected, Ashton Eaton concluded day one of the men’s Heptathlon in the lead here in Istanbul although he may have wished to have scored a little higher in the fourth and final event of the day where he had to be content with a 2.03 clearance and 831 points.
Eaton unfortunately passed the next height and then had 3 failures at 2.09, a gambler’s decision which cost him 56 points (28 points had he cleared 2.06).
However, Eaton is still an excellent 76 points ahead of his own World record pace based on his results from Tallin last year and considering the added motivation of seeing Natallia Dobrinska set a new Pentathlon record today we expect him to come back ready for more improvements tomorrow.
After scoring 958 points with his opening 6.79 in the 60m (he scored 1007 in Tallin; -49), Eaton has improved on each of his next performances: 1102 points in the Long Jump (1002 in Tallin; +100), 763 points in the Shot Put (756 in Tallin; +7) and 831 points in the High Jump (813 in Tallin; +18).
Eaton, who was also the outdoor silver medallist last year in Daegu, left the Atakoy Arena with a tally of 3654 points, 165 points clear of his closest opponent Oleksiy Kasyanov who underperformed badly in the High Jump (1.97).
Yordani Garcia and Adam Sebastien Helcelet were to only athletes able to clear 2.06 this afternoon but the Cuban is still trailing in seventh overall at 3202 points while the Czech remained in fourth with 3277 points.
Three events remain on the programme for tomorrow; could another astonishing performance be awaiting the Istanbul crowd?
Laura Arcoleo for the IAAF
