Each day in the run up to the European Indoor Championships in Glasgow, we will select two athletes from the heptathlon field for a head to head.  First, the athletes who have previously won medals at the European Indoors. 

Jorge Ureña

Jorge placed Spain at the top of the world and European rankings for most of the indoor season, and qualified easily for Glasgow, after scoring 5979 in Valencia in December and extending his world lead to 6124 at the Welsh Athletics Combined Events International meeting in Cardiff in January. Jorge won the silver medal behind Kevin Mayer at the European Indoor Championships in Belgrade in 2017 and finished 7 th in Prague in 2015.

See more about Jorge here.

Ilya Shkurenyov

The only multieventer in the heptathlon field for Glasgow who has previously won gold at the European Indoor Championships is Ilya Shkurenyov, who had a superb win in Prague in 2015. After a difficult few years, Ilya started to return to form in Berlin in 2018 to take the European outdoors silver medal behind Arthur Abele, qualifying for the European Indoors in the process. Ilya has been close to his best in the long jump this year already, jumping 7.67 in Russia earlier this month.

See more about Ilya here.

Photo credit: James Rhodes

Gabby Pieraccini

Brief athletics career peaked with a glorious medal for Glasgow University in the 4x200 relay in 1992 (look it up, it’s true, honest). Since then been talking about decathlon to anyone who will listen, or anyone who has ears. Civil servant in Edinburgh, Scotland. Loves to tell the stories of decathlon: the highs, the lows, the joy and the tears.

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