Torun 2021 Countdown: Andreas Bechmann
Each day in the run up to the 2021 European Indoor Championships in Toruń, Decathlonpedia will feature some of the athletes competing in the heptathlon. Today, the two-times German heptathlon champion, Andreas Bechmann.
Andreas Bechmann is still only 21 but this will be his second time at the European Indoor Championships. He got a late call-up in 2019 when Kai Kazmirek had to withdraw with injury, and his 6017 points set that year when winning the German Indoor championships – a world lead when he set it – qualified him for his first senior championships.
Bechmann broke through into the highest level of elite multi-eventing in 2019. He performed well in Glasgow in 2019 to finish 5th in 6001, ahead of much more experienced athletes. Andreas looked set to continue his improvement into the outdoor season, aiming for the European U23 Championships in Gävle, but an injury in the hurdles at the annual U23 meeting in Bernhausen in June side-lined him for a few months. But he returned with a bang in Bernhausen in September 2019 to lead the German men to victory at the Thorpe Cup competition with his first >8k decathlon score, 8132.
In 2020 he repeated his win at the German indoor championships, extending his indoor PB to 6097 and this year he had a grand duel with Simon Ehammer in Frankfurt, pushing the Swiss close and logging the 6057 that qualified him for Toruń.
Bechmann is good indoors. He is fast and a superb jumper (especially in the vertical jumps), and he has improved across most events since 2019. This year he has already set a lifetime best in the high jump (2.10) and in the pole vault (5.21). While he might be slower in the hurdles than the likes of Mayer, Ehammer and Ureña, he can make up big Day 2 points in the last 2 events. Bechmann has only competed in 4 senior indoor heptathlons – and he has scored over 6000 in all of them.
Photo: Markus Schwarz
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