World Class Fields set for Multistars - World Combined Events Tour Gold

Thursday, 25 April 2024

The 37th edition of the Multistars in Brescia will kick off the 2024 World Combined Events Tour Gold on Saturday, April 27. The Multistars returns to its origins in the Northern Italian city of Brescia, where the major combined events meeting was held for seven editions from 1988 to 1994 before moving to Desenzano del Garda.

Athletes from 26 countries will compete in the athletics stadium named after Gabre Gabric, who took part in two editions of the Olympic Games in Berlin 1936 and London 1948 in the discus throw.

Women's Heptathlon:

Italian indoor record holder Sveva Gerevini and four women with a PB over the 6300 points barrier will headline a high-quality heptathlon competition: Taliyah Brooks from the USA, Ivona Dadic from Austria, Caroline Agnou from Switzerland and Ninali Zheng from China.

Sveva Gerevini is aiming to break the Italian heptathlon record set by Gertrud Bacher at the Multistars in 1999 with 6185 points. Gerevini placed fourth at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow 2024 breaking the Italian indoor record in the pentathlon with 4559 points.

Taliyah Brooks will defend her last year’s Multistars title. During the 2023 season Brooks won in Desenzano del Garda with 6330 points and finished second at the US Championships in Eugene with 6319 points and third in Talence with 6181 points. She clocked the fastest time in the 100 metres hurdles with 12.78 but made three fouls in the long jump at the World Championships in Budapest.

The 29-year-old US heptathlete set PBs of 12.61 in the 100 metres hurdles and 6.78m in the long jump. She won the NCAA Indoor title in the pentathlon with 4572 points in 2018.

Dadic won the world indoor silver medal in the pentathlon with 4700 points in Birmingham 2018, the European indoor silver medal in Belgrade 2017 with 4767 points and the bronze medal at the European Championships in Amsterdam 2016 in the heptathlon with 6408 points. She has a PB of 6552 points and took part in three editions of the Olympic Games with an eighth place in Tokyo 2021 as her best result at this event. Her bother Ivan died in 2008 in a car accident and she has a tattoed cross on her left hand with his name.

Agnou won two gold medals at the European under 20 Championships in Eskilstuna 2015 with 6123 points and at the European Under 23 Championships in Bydgoszcz 2017 with 6330 points.

Zheng won the Asian Games gold medal with 6149 points last October. Her Chinese maternal grandmother Zheng Fengrong set the women’s world record in the high jump with 1.77m in 1957. Zhang is the first Chinese athlete to compete at the Multistars.

She competed as part of the Canadian team at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, where she finished second to Katarina Johnson Thompson with a PB of 6133 points. Zheng changed citizenship from Canada to China in 2021 and won the World Athletics Combined Events Tour Gold meeting in Arona with her PB of 6358 points and finished tenth at the Olympic Games in Tokyo that year with 6318 points.

Jade O’Dowda from Great Britain returns to the Multistars for the second consecutive year after finishing second with 6178 points in Desenzano del Garda 2023. O’Dowda won the bronze medal in the heptathlon with 6212 points at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and finished seventh with 6187 points at the European Championships in Munich in 2022.

Kate O’Connor from Ireland finished second at the 2021 Multistars in Lana with 6297 points. The Irish heptathlete won two silver medals at the European under 20 Championships in Boras 2019 and at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham 2022 with 6233 points. She set her PB of 52.92m in the javelin in her strongest event.

The other athletes with a PB over 6100 points are Bianca Salming from Sweden, who finished eighth with 6185 points at the European Championships in Munich 2022, Hanne Maudens from Belgium, who won the world under 20 bronze medal in Bydgoszcz 2016 and set her PB of 6252 points in Goetzis 2018, Marta Gioele Giovannini, Italian Indoor champion in the pentathlon in 2024, and Giulia Riccardi, second at the Italian outdoor Championships in the heptathlon in Molfetta 2023.

The Multistars has always been a springboard event for young rising stars. The new name to watch at this year’s edition is Sarolta Kriszt from Hungary, who won the European under 18 silver medal in 2022.

Men’s decathlon:

Three athletes with a PB over the 8300 points barrier will line-up in the men’s decathlon: Thomas Van der Plaetzen from Belgium, Adam Sebastian Helcelet from Czech Republic and Pawel Wiesolek from Poland. They will take on Italian indoor and outdoor record holder Dario Dester.

Dester, who trains with Gerevini under the guidance of Pietro Frittoli in Casalbuttano near Cremona in Northern Italy, placed sixth at the European Championships in Munich 2022 in the decathlon with a national record of 8218 points. Dester became the first Italian athlete to break the 6000 points barrier in the indoor heptathlon with 6076 points. This year he scored 5873 points in the heptathlon in the indoor meeting in Aubière last January.

Van der Plaetzen won the gold medal at the European Championships in Amsterdam 2016 with 8218 points and the bronze medal at the World Indoor Championships in Sopot 2014 with a national indoor record of 6259 points. The Belgian athlete finished eighth at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro 2016 and won the European under 20 title in 2009 and the European under 23 gold medal in 2011.

Helcelet won the silver medal at the European Championships in Amsterdam 2016 behind Van der Plaetzen with 8157 points and the bronze medal at the European Indoor Championships in Belgrade 2017. Helcelet set his decathlon PB of 8335 points in Goetzis in 2017.

Wiesolek won the bronze medal at the European Indoor Championships in the heptathlon in Torun 2021 with 6133 points and has a PB of 8333 points. The Polish athlete won the Mustistars in Lana 2021 with 7863 points.

Jente Hautteskeete from Belgium is the rising star in the field. Hautteskeete set the world under 20 record in the indoor heptathlon with 6062 points in Frankfurt in 2021. The Belgian athlete won the European under 20 title in Tallin 2021 with his PB of 8150 points and finished second with 8053 points at the World under 20 Championships in Nairobi 2021.

The other top names are Risto Lillemets from Estonia, European Indoor bronze medallist in the heptathlon in Istanbul with 6079 points, José Fernando Ferreira Santana from Brazil, South American champion in 2023 with 8058 points, Bastien Auzeil from France, sixth at the European Indoor Championships in Prague 2015, Andrin Huber from Switzerland, European Under 20 bronze medallist in Jerusalem 2023 with 8009 points, Yuma Maruyama from Japan, Asian champion in Bangkok in 2023, Lorenzo Modugno, Italian champion in Rovereto 2021 and Andrea Cerrato, Italian indoor champion in the heptathlon in 2023.

START LISTS WOMEN'S HEPTATHLON

START LISTS MEN'S DECATHLON