Talence (AFP)
Cruel for Nafissatou Thiam: very well at the end of the first day of the Decastar, the Belgian, victim of an elbow injury, finally failed to break the European record of the heptathlon even if she managed to win Sunday at Talence.
Carolina Kluft can sleep on both ears. The Swede, who holds the best total history on the continental level (7032 points, August 26, 2007 in Osaka), has certainly been definitively erased from the tablets but Thiam, victorious for his first appearance in the city Gironde (6819 points), missed the boat, the fault of a painful elbow.
The Olympic and world champion had to stop her javelin competition after two tries as the European record reached her arms and it was in tears, undoubtedly under the combined effects of pain and suffering. disappointment, that she left the track. Eight months after Kevin Mayer's fabulous world record in decathlon (9,126 points), the Talence crowd came close to witnessing another feat before Thiam was betrayed by his body.
- "I can do it again" -
"I hurt myself at the Interclubs five or six weeks ago," she explained, "the doctor told me it was OK, that there was no risk. try, it was ok, the 2nd, at the time of launch, I did not feel it cracked on the spot but it was just after I felt that it was wrong, I immediately understood that it was not good and that it would be impossible to launch a third time. "
The Belgian still took the start of the 800m with a big bandage in the right arm to complete his heptathlon but morale was inevitably reached, especially at three months of the World Cup in Doha (September 27 - October 6). It was not so much the failure of the record race that bothered Thiam as much as the injury at the worst moment.
"Frankly, I'm 24 years old, if I managed to do that now, I can do it again," she said, "it's hurting and hurting." I would have preferred to miss to leave with a healthy elbow The preparation had been complicated this season with a calf injury and I had struggled to get back in shape. "
- Mayer frustrated -
All had ideally started for Thiam, who was heading inexorably towards a dream weekend. She had improved three of her personal best ever (2.02 m in height, world record in heptathlon and 2nd best world performance of the year, 15.41 m in weight, 6.67 m in length) and was ideally positioned to overtake Kluft and steal him the status of 2nd performer in history behind the American Jackie Joyner-Kersee (7291 points, September 24, 1988 in Seoul). But everything collapsed on one shot.
On the men's side, the decathlon was won by Canadian Pierce Lepage (8453 points). World record holder Kevin Mayer finished his weekend on a frustrating note. The French, who had decided to play only 6 out of 10 events, started his day on Sunday with a 110 m hurdles curled in 13 sec 90 and a disc launched at 50.15 m. But, embarrassed by the wind, he signed a disappointing zero-pointed pole, yet his favorite discipline, with a failure to 5.05 m and two to 5.15 m.
"The wind is not an excuse, it's the same for everyone," dropped the world champion (2017) at the microphone of the stadium speaker before leaving the track, obviously angry. Mayer was probably expecting a different return to the scene of his record.
? 2019 AFP