News24 May 2014


Heptathlon field in Gotzis strengthened by addition of young talents

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British heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson (© Getty Images)

Hypo-Meeting’s heptathlon field has been boosted by a handful of up-and-coming talents who will be looking to continue their rise to the top at the IAAF Combined Events Challenge meeting in Gotzis, which gets under way on 31 May.

Britain’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson will be making her Hypo-Meeting debut in what will be her first full combined events competition of 2014. The European under-23 champion and world junior long jump champion has already shown great form this year, breaking the British high jump record with 1.96m indoors and taking world indoor long jump silver with an outright PB of 6.81m.

Johnson-Thompson, who finished fifth at last year’s World Championships, will challenge for the victory in Gotzis as she prepares for the Commonwealth Games later in the summer.

Her younger team-mate Morgan Lake is also a recent addition to the Hypo-Meeting field. The 17-year-old became the youngest ever winner of the IAAF Combined Events meeting in Florence earlier this month, setting a PB of 5896 in poor conditions. Since then, she has broken the British junior high jump record with 1.93m.

Another talented junior, Cuba’s Yorgelis Rodriguez, is a third Hypo-Meeting debutante. The 19-year-old will be looking to defend her world junior title later this year, but before that in Gotzis she will try to improve on her area junior record of 6231 that she set earlier this year.

In total, there will be 24 heptathletes in Gotzis with PBs in excess of 6000 points. Other recent additions include Brazil’s three-time South American champion Vanessa Spinola, Norwegian record-holder Ida Marcussen, world junior silver medallist Xenia Krizsan and World University Games bronze medallist Gyorgiy Zsivoczky-Farkas.

There have been a few recent withdrawals from the decathlon field as world silver medallist Damian Warner, former Gotzis winner Hans van Alphen and European silver medallist Oleksiy Kasyanov have all been affected by either illness or injury.

But the line-up has since been boosted by the likes of South American record-holder Carlos Chinin, current world leader Yordani Garcia, World University Games bronze medallist Brent Newdick, three-time Multistars runner-up Ashley Bryant and British indoor heptathlon record-holder John Lane.

Organisers for the IAAF

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