A shift in the balance of power in world multi-eventing might have just taken place over the weekend with the amazing rise of Great Britain’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson.
Not only did the young heptathlete from Liverpool win on her debut the 40th Hypomeeting in Gotzis, but she did so with a personal best, a world-leading mark and a performance that would actually have brought her gold at last summer’s IAAF World Championships in Moscow.
At 21, and even by the progress she has been making over the last few years, this was some statement as she won with 6682 points.
In Moscow she was fifth with 6449 as Ukraine’s Hanna Melnychenko won with 6586.
A specialist in the long jump, where she is the World junior champion, the impact Johnson-Thompson has made this weekend will be felt across the sport worldwide.
It was another superb two days of competition when once more the strength of European multi-eventing was shown.
Johnson-Thompson won from Canada’s Brianna Theisen-Eaton, second with 6641, with the Netherlands’ Dafne Schippers achieving a national record of 6545 in third, just ahead of her teammate Nadine Broersen with 6536 and then next in fifth was Nafissatou Thiam who set a Belgium record of 6508.
Johnson-Thompson had personal bests in the 100m hurdles (13.44), 200m (22.89) and javelin (41.44m) and though Thiam was in front in the competition before the last event, the 800m, the Briton won her heat in 2:08.16 to take the title.
It was some weekend for Great Britain as Johnson-Thompson’s teammate Morgan Lake, 17, broke the European Youth record as she finished with 6081 in 17th.
Europe’s decathlon strength was also on show. As 2009 and 2011 world champion Trey Hardee, of the USA, won with 8518, German athletes finished second and third with Kai Kazmirek producing a personal best for silver with 8471 ahead of Rico Freimuth's 8317.
It was some weekend in Adler at the Russian Team Championships where St Petersburg won the top category with 555 points ahead of the Krasnodar region with 436 and Moscow with 433 points.
Such was the level of the performances, that the event ended with seven 2014 European leading marks: Yekaterina Poistogova in the 800m (1:58.55), Aleksandr Lesnoy in shot put (21.40m), Yekaterina Koneva in the triple jump (14.83m), Nikolay Chavki in the men’s 3000m steeplechase (8:26.97), Denis Kudryavtsev in the 400 m hurdles (48.95), Tatyana Veshkurova in the 400m (51.41) and Angelina Zhuk-Krasnova in the pole vault (4.65m).
There actually was an eighth when Yekaterina Doseykina won the women’s 3000m steeplechase in 9:35.28 on Friday but by Sunday, that time had been overtaken in Oordegem, Belgium, when Sweden´s Charlotta Fougberg broke the national record in 9:34.61.
Straneo, Kucmin, Reif impress
In Dobbiaco, Valeria Straneo, Italy’s World marathon silver-medallist, won the Cortina-Dobbiaco 30km road race in 1:50:09 while across the country in Orvieto, Diego Marani produced a Zurich standard of 20.65 in the 200m and Marzia Caravelli did the same as she won the 100m hurdles in 13.07.
The 17th staging of the road walking meeting in Hlohovec brought a home win for Slovakia’s Anton Kucmin in the men’s 5km event in 19:44 with Hungary’s Viktoria Madarasz winning the women’s in 22:08.
It was an outstanding weekend of men’s long jumping with Germany’s Christian Reif leading the way.
The European champion in Barcelona in 2010 with 8.47m, his personal best mark is now 8.49m after a brilliant performance at the Kurpfalz Gala meeting in Weinheim.
His effort it the second-best in the world this year behind Britain’s Olympic Greg Rutherford who has cleared 8.51m, while third behind them both in the European Athletics rankings is Greek record-holder Louis Tsatoumas who jumped 8.22m in Kalamata on Saturday.
THE WEEK AHEADí¢€¨
Europe is staging 74 meetings this week and for all the dates, visit our European Athletics Calendar