Torun 2021 Countdown: Simon Ehammer
Each day in the run up to the heptathlon in the 2021 European Indoor Championships in Toruń, Decathlonpedia will feature some of the athletes competing. Today, the European U20 decathlon champion, Simon Ehammer.
Toruń is Simon's first European Indoors, and his first senior championships, but he is an old hand at representing his country. He competed at the European U20 championships in Grosseto in 2017, finishing in 19th place. A year later at the World U20 Championships in Tampere, he improved to take the bronze medal. And in 2019, he returned to the European U20 Championships in Borås and became champion.
Simon arrived in 2020 ready to take on the world, with an invitation to Götzis and his eye on the decathlon and long jump in Tokyo. But the Covid-19 pandemic put paid to that. Nevertheless, Switzerland was one of the countries able to maintain a high level of competition, and within that environment, he flourished. In every decathlon or heptathlon in which Simon has finished since Borås, he in unbeaten. They include two 8000+ decathlon scores in 2020, the second 8231 just a few points of the Swiss record.
He can run 10.50 over 100m, and 13.48 for the 110 hurdles, faster than Kevin Mayer. Indoors he can do 6.81 and 7.80. His long jump best is 8.15, and his high jump over 2m. This year Simon has improved his shot, hovering under 14m to a mighty 15.31m. He has also improved his pole vault, over 5.10 outdoors and 5m indoors. Indoors, it is only the final event, the 1000m, where he is not among the highest scorers in the field.
Simon set an indoor national heptathlon record in 2020, which he lost briefly to Andri Oberholzer this year, but regained with a first time score over 6000 - 6092 to take the world lead at the time and qualify for Toruń. Earlier in the year he was on course for a much bigger score - potentially even over 6300 - but succumbed to a no-height in the pole vault.
Photo: Getty Images for European Athletics
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