Elena Prokhorova (© Getty Images)
Frenchman Laurent Hernu, 5th at the World Championships and Russian Yelena Prokhorova, 4th at the Worlds' heptathlon, justified their world status by winning the Decastar with 8219 points and 6254 points respectively. While their victories were predictable in regard to their results of the first day, the other places for the podium remained highly uncertain until the end, especially in the women's competition.
Both favourites opened the second day on a victory with 14.32 in the 110m Hurdles for Hernu while Prokhorova landed at 6.51m in the Long Jump, her best performance since 2001 and the second biggest point tally of the competition (1010 points) behind the 1029 points collected by Marie Collonvillé in the High Jump (1.84m). An essential boost, considering that her following result in the javelin, 42.92m, was more average, just enough for 6th. Meanwhile, Laurent Hernu kept his progression going with two second placings in the discus (47.14m for 811 points) and the pole vault (5.02m for 917t points), twice behind athletes out of contention, American Phil Mc Mullen (50.35m in the discus) and Paul Terek (5.22m at the pole vault).
On the whole the good meteorological conditions and the warm support of the public helped the athletes to get the maximum out of themselves. Other noticeable performances were 6.47m by Kelly Sotherton in the long jump, 52.68m by Larisa Netseporuk and 48.61m by Khazakstan's Svetlana Kazanina in the javelin.
The javelin results actually proved determining for the final placing as they lifted Netseporuk from 5th to 2nd and Kazanina from 8th to 3rd. Despite all her efforts on the 800m, Italy's Gertrud Bacher (winner in 2:10.05) remained 20 points short of the third place as Kazanina (2nd in 2:12.23), Prokhorova (5th in 2:14.10) and Netseporuk (8th in 2:18.21) managed to keep their position unchanged. Finally Prokhorova took the win with 6254 points ahead of Netseporuk (6113 points) and Kazanina (6083 points).
"It was important for me to win as I was 4th at the World Championships and the first three were not here today. In Paris I fought for the 3rd place but I had problems in the javelin and had to settle for 4th. I came to Talence to score 6300 points, but I should have run 2:11 for the 800m and that was just too much for me. I've been coming back from a knee surgery, so I'm quite happy the way the season went. My ligament rupture happened during a javelin event, so I'm still a bit scared when it comes to javelin throw," Yelena Prokhorova commented on her performance.
In the men's event, despite a 64.67m throw in the javelin that put him back in the race for the podium, Norway's Trond Hoiby couldn't prevent the building of a 100 % French podium made of Laurent Hernu who faded in the last event and with 8219 points failed to improve his 8280 PB, world university champion Romain Barras with 8060 points and Lionel Marceny with 7773 points.
"A victory in Talence is a great pleasure. I dreamt of a win here at least once. Now that's done. I had great fun. It was really hot during the high jump so I got very tired. This morning it was hard for me to get up. After the hurdles, it got better. I did very well in the discus and the pole vault but had an average result in the javelin. I felt some pain in the thighs during the 1500m, so I slowed down a bit so as not to risk injury. I had three decathlons above 8000 points this year. Now the goal is to be consistent at that level," Laurent Hernu declared after the finish.
Talence's final results bring important changes in the Combined Events Challenge rankings. In the women competition, while Carolina Klüft couldn't be dethroned, German Sonia Kesselschläger was sent back to fourth by Yelena Prokhorova and Larisa Netseporuk who improved their total to 19019 and 18482. Austra Skujyte, Gertrud Bacher and Irina Butor move back to 5th, 6th and 7th, while the 8th rank is held by Svetlana Kazanina with 18126 points, which means that 6155 points, a new personal best would be needed by Ghana's Margaret Simpson to modify the final rankings.
In the men's rankings Laurent Hernu moves to 3rd place to the detriment of fellow countryman Romain Barras who lost one place, while Polish Michal Modelski will be ranked 8th with 22928 unless Tunisia's Hamdi Dhouibi gets a score superior to 7572 points at the African championships.
Carole Fuchs for the IAAF
