It was a dramatic start for the men’s Heptathlon with joint world leading athletes Andrei Krauchanka (BLR) and Dmitriy Karpov (KAZ), both with 6229 point totals this season falling badly behind the event favourite Bryan Clay (USA) in the first event of the Heptathlon, 60m sprint.
Following the usual false start problems Clay got off to good start clearly winning the 60m in a season’s best 6.71s to score 988 points. The American, who has got two silvers from World Indoors in 2004 and 2006 only slightly missed his personal best 6.65sec which he set at the World Indoor Championships in Budapest 2004.
But it was a whole different story for Krauchanka and Karpov who both stumbled badly with the Krauchanka finishing with a lowly 7.19 and Karpov even slower 7.20. In the world leading 6229p heptathlon in Tallinn earlier Krauchanka ran 7.03 personal best and Karpov 7.07 season’s best.
Late entry to the competition, Andres Raja (EST) set a personal best 6.95 in second place for his first ever sub-7 second 60m race and Donovan Kilmartin (USA) also had a PB in third with a 7.02 result.
With the two world leading athletes struggling, Bryan Clay is now a clear favourite to win his first World Indoor title following the two silvers, but will have to fight fierce competition from Russian Mikhail Logvinenko who got off nicely with a personal best 7.03 in the first event.
Aleksandr Pogorelov (RUS) set a season’s best 7.06 in the 60m and Roman Sebrle (CZE) could only manage 7.16 after a bad start. These two are veterans of World Indoor Championships, Sebrle attending the meet for the 6th and Pogorelov for 4th time.
Projected final scores (using season’s best):
Bryan Clay SB 6192 - projected 6214 +22p
Dmitriy Karpov SB 6229 - projected 6184 -45p
Andrei Krauchanka SB 6229 - projected 6173 -56p
Mikhail Logvinenko SB 6129 - projected 6164 +35p
Aleksandr Pogorelov SB 6136 - projected 6146 +10p
Donovan Kilmartin SB 6008 - projected 6029 +21p
Andres Raja SB 5949 - projected 5988 +39p
Roman Sebrle SB 5892 - projected 5878 -14p
Mirko Jalava for the IAAF
