Doha 2019 Countdown: Part Six
Five times Götzis champion, the fastest man ever in a decathlon, with a 10.12 100m. It’s been a pretty big year for Damian as he comes into his fifth world championships with a season’s best of 8711. As he continues to edge closer to 10 seconds – and continues to improve his throws – he collected his second Pan American title ahead of Lindon Victor and Pierce Lepage, scoring 8513 in Lima where the temperatures could not have been more different from Doha. Bronze at the Rio Olympics, bronze in Moscow 2013, silver in Beijing 2015…will it be gold in Doha 2019 for Canada?
Photo credit: Bjorn Paree
2018 was a breakthrough year for Tim Duckworth, going from NCAA champion in a personal best score of 8336 (which qualified him for the World Championships) onto fifth place in his first major senior championships, the European Championships in Berlin, behind Arthur Abele, Ilya Shkurenyev, Vitaly Zhuk and Niklas Kaul. In 2019, the European Indoor silver medallist has made significant improvements in his distance events, improved his hurdles and become British long jump champion for the second year in succession.
Photo credit: Michel Fisquet, Team Photo
Pawel became the Polish decathlon champion for the second time this year, and in doing so he achieved a new best and Doha qualifying score of 8204. He has seen improvements across his sprints, throws and distance disciplines this year – a 22.15 200 PB in May, followed by discus and 1500 bests. After Götzis and the Polish championships, his third full decathlon of the year was in Ribeira Brava, where he led the Polish team and finished 4th in the individual decathlon at the European Combined Events First League competition.
Photo credit: Michel Fisquet, Team Photo
While others focused on competitions later in the season, the King of the North Martin Roe was omnipresent in the early meetings of the year, competing in Multistars in April, Götzis in May, and Arona in June. That placed him at the head of the IAAF Combined Events Challenge table going into the World Championships, but he did not need the wild card entry, having secured the qualifying score with a Norwegian national record of 8228 in Lana in 2018. His one further competition before Doha was a suite of events at the Norwegian Championships at the start of August, competing in long jump, 200, hurdles and shot.
Photo credit: Olavi Kaljunen, Trackpic
• 2019 Multistars preview
• 2019 Multistars review
• 2019 Götzis preview
• 2019 Götzis review
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