Paris (AFP)
Decathlon world record holder Kevin Mayer was victorious on Sunday in a very special kind of distance triathlon, which is said to fill the calendar gap due to the coronavirus pandemic, against German world champion Niklas Kaul and the Estonian Maicel Uibo.
After the men and women pole vaulters in May, it was the turn of the three best decathleteers in the world to have the honors of the "Ultimate Garden Clash", a distance competition format launched by the International Athletics Federation to compensate for the stopping of meetings. On the menu: pole vault (cross a maximum of 4 m bars in 10 minutes), shot put (throw more than 12 m as many times as possible for 10 minutes) and race (do the most back and forth over a distance of 20 m for 5 minutes).
In this little game, Kevin Mayer, playing in Montpellier, was the strongest by dominating Niklas Kaul, based in Mainz (Germany), and Maicel Uibo, who officiated from Clermont (United States). The Frenchman flew over the pole (17 successful jumps) and the weight (28 successful throws) before being narrowly beaten in the race (26 successful round trips for Mayer, 27 for Klaus). He won with a total of 71 points.
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