The World Championship decathlon in Eugene remains a tough affair for defending champion Niklas Kaul: After a personal best over 110 m hurdles, he fell short of his potential in the discus throw. Before the last three disciplines, Canadian Pierce Lepage is in the lead, with World Championship debutant Leo Neugebauer pushing himself further forward.
For Kaul, the discus throw is a best performance of 49.20 m – achieved in his World Cup triumph in Doha three years ago. He didn’t come close to that in Eugene. At 44.62 m he came at the longest attempt. In the overall standings, the 24-year-old from Mainz is therefore not making any headway in his attempt to catch up: after day one he was 16th, before the last three disciplines he was 14th in a field of 20 athletes with 5,846 points. Kaul’s strongest discipline is the javelin throw, but the gap to the competition in the fight for a medal is already large.
Canadian Lepage takes the lead
After the injury-related retirement of Olympic champion Damian Warner at the end of the first day, a Canadian is now in the lead in Pierce Lepage. With 6,427 points after a discus throw (53.26 m), he took over first place from Ayden Owens-Delerme from Puerto Rico (6,309). World record holder Kevin Mayer from France (6,216) is now fourth behind the American Zach Ziemek (6,221).
World Cup debutant Neugebauer moves up to seventh place
The best German is still World Cup newcomer Leo Neugebauer from LG Leinfelden-Echterdingen. The 22-year-old threw the discus for him a good 51.88 m and has already collected 6,075 points – that puts him in seventh place. Kai Kazmirek from the LG Rhein-Wied (5,769) and Tim Nowak from Ulm (5,557) should not be satisfied with their performance and the 18th and 19th places.
Leo Neugebauer can be more than satisfied with his World Cup debut so far.
This is how the decathlon goes
The eighth discipline of the decathletes is the pole vault, which is currently taking place in two groups. Finally, the javelin throw (2.05/3.10 a.m. CEST) and the run over 1,500 m (4.20 a.m. CEST) are on the program – everything live at sportschau.de and from 1.15 a.m. also in the first.