Victor and Oosterwegel to defend Decastar titles in Talence
Lindon Victor from Grenada and Emma Oosterwegel from the Netherlands will return to Talence to defend their titles at the Decastar, the final meeting of the World Athletics Combined Events Tour Gold.
Victor won last year’s edition of the Decastar meeting breaking his own national record with 8550 points. The Grenadan athlete, who won two gold medals at the Commonwealth Games in 2018 and 2022, improved his record again to 8756 points to clinch the world bronze medal in Budapest last August behind Pierce LePage and Damian Warner. He moved up to 15th on the world all-time list.
In the Hungarian capital Victor set a championships best of 54.97m in the discus throw and set three PBs in the long jump (7.55m), in the 400 metres (48.05) and in the 1500 metres (4’39”76).
Victor will face Manuel Eitel from Germany, Thomas Van der Plaezen from Belgium, Devon Williams from the United States and Pawel Wiesolek from Poland.
Eitel finished 11th at the World Championships in Budapest and fifth in Goetzis with his lifetime best of 8351 points.
Van der Plaetzen finished third in Goetzis improving his PB to 8430 points in 2021 and fourth in Ratingen with 8233 points last June.
Williams won the NCAA Indoor title in the heptathlon with 6177 points and the US Championships title with 8295 points in Des Moines in 2019.
Wiesolek won the European Indoor bronze medal with 6133 points in Torun 2021.
The line-up also features Makenson Gletty from France, national champion in Albi with 8279 points, Risto Lillemets from Estonia, European Indoor Championships in Istanbul 2023 with 6079 points.
Oosterwegel tied the first place with Ivona Dadic with 6233 points in last year’s edition of the Decastar meeting.
Oosterwegel finished fifth at the World Championships in Budapest with 6464 points, setting the second best score in her career. The Dutch athlete won the Olympic bronze medal in Tokyo 2021 setting her PB of 6590 points. She finished third in Ratingen with 6209 last June.
Xenia Kriszan from Hungary finished fourth at the World Championships in Budapest with 6479 points setting the third best performance of her career. Kriszan won the Hypo Meeting in Goetzis with a national record of 6651 points in 2021.
Sophie Weissenberg from Germany finished seventh at the World Championships in Budapest in a lifetime of 6438 points and third in Ratingen with 6209 points.
Annie Kunz from the United States holds the best score among the entrants with her PB of 6703 points set at the 2021 US Championships in Eugene. Kunz finished sixth at the Olympic Games in Tokyo later that year with 6420 points.
Taliyah Brooks won the 2023 Multistars in Desenzano del Garda with 6390 points last April and finished third at the US Championships in Eugene with 6319 points.
The other US athlete in the line-up is Michelle Atherley, who won the NCAA indoor Championships in Birmingham in 2019 in the pentathlon with 4547 points.
The line-up also features Annik Kaelin from Switzerland, winner at the 2022 Multistars in Grosseto, sixth at the World Championships in Eugene with 6464 points and European bronze medallist in Munich with 6515 points, 2019 world bronze medallist Verena Mayr, and 2021 European under 23 silver medallist Claudia Conte from Spain, who will compete in her first heptathlon competition since the 2022 European Championships in Munich after an injury problem.
The entry lists feature a total of ten decathletes who have surpassed 8200 points in the decathlon and ten heptathletes with a PB over the 6200 points barrier.
