After a 20-year break, the European Athletics Championships will be held in Munich from 15 to 21. August. shows the race events live.
Kevin Mayer will try for a doubles championship this summer, even though winning just one in his sport will empty the tank.
It is exceptional for a decathlete to compete twice in just a few weeks, but with this year’s competition calendar, the Frenchman can’t rest on his laurels. Only 21 days have passed since the end of the decathlon of the World Championships in Oregon, when the decathlon of the European Championships begins in Munich.
On the way home from the United States, the European Championship was far from my mind. A gold medal, the second world championship of his career, shone around his neck. The most important competition event of the year was behind us, so the main goal of the season had already been achieved.
However, after a couple of days, the idea of a new company started to tickle. The feeling was good, surprisingly fresh, and there was a rare double gold on offer. Changed my mind.
The last time Mayer has competed in two full decathlon matches during the same season was in 2016. Then there were almost three months between the matches.
– I told myself that there won’t be too many European Championships in the next few years, and I’ve never been European champion. I want to have fun and this is a great opportunity, he reasoned According to L’Equipe (you will switch to another service).
The decathlon world record (9126 points) has been held by Mayer for four years now. Since 2001, ME has been violated only three times. On two previous occasions, the legend succeeded in the trick Ashton Eaton.
Mayer set his record after the last time he had failed on the European Championship stage. The series of the 2018 European Championships in Berlin was ruined when there was no result at all in the long jump.
The failure fueled the desire to perform and helped charge everything to the race in France in September 2018. Under intense pressure, Mayer pulled out the performance of his life despite the pain.
The same hunger is still there. In six years, Mayer has won three world championships and two Olympic silver medals, but the EC gold is still missing. The only EC medal is silver from eight years ago.
For an all-rounder, the decathlon is an ideal choice of sport, and for Mayer there were few options to consider. There was a lot on offer, but nothing ever felt good enough. The Frenchman tried many sports in his childhood and youth, but always got bored.
Sports was an escape for a lively child who grew up in the middle of Brejeskatra. Sitting in class was difficult if you couldn’t release your energy. Movement was the best means of self-expression, which Mayer also relied on year after year when trying everything possible.
– I was in a bad mood if I didn’t strain myself. My father was a sports coach and my mother a physical education teacher, so I had suitable parents. At the age of two, I was put on skis and given a tennis racket. I counted slopes with a moped. I don’t remember when I started liking sports, but I think it was in my genes, he told Le Monde last year (you switch to another service).
Mayer tried rugby, swimming and handball, which soon gave way as well. He played tennis for a long time, which eventually fell behind athletics. He grew into a multi-athlete through running.
– I liked pain and suffering. I finally found matchmaking. There are so many sports in athletics that you can never get bored.
Since then, Mayer has become a rare case: a professional who supports himself year-round with the decathlon. At one point, he tried to study at the university, but quickly gave up because he did not feel that combining studies and Olympic gold was a working union.
No one else in France makes a living from decathlon alone. Mayer’s goal is to create conditions in which it would be more easily possible in the future.
Ten sports are difficult to master at all. It is difficult to succeed in the same competition in each of them. And it is almost impossible for the viewer to follow everyone. Mayer understands why the decathlon is not fully understood.
The most trying of competition forms doesn’t garner headlines, make millions, or even get the credit it deserves. The two-day crunch has its own passionate audience, which is a fraction of the audience reached by prestigious athletics competitions.
The interaction between the competitors is also unusual for extreme elite sports. At 100 meters, you are either ahead of your neighbor or behind him. The spear is either thrown further or remains defeated. This is also the case in the decathlon, but just as in many sports the competitors present themselves to the audience together before the start of the performance, the decathlon athletes gather together to thank the audience after their unique crunch.
– In practice, we live for two days with other ten-members. This is not a sprint. Golf also has 18 holes, but it’s not the same. Together, we experience something so intense and long-lasting that it arouses sympathy for others despite the competitive situation. There is no such thing anywhere else in sports, Mayer described in an interview with GQ (you go to another service).
The Frenchman has summed up the common ordeal best by presenting an alternative point of view to the entire competition. In individual sports, you compete against others, but in the decathlon, the biggest opposition is in the mirror. Pain creates camaraderie and a successful series of ten sports is already an achievement in itself.
– All ten are never perfect. There may be problems in pole vault or long jump. You always have to think about how to finish the decathlon without collapsing, Mayer described to GQ.
He has considered his consistency to be his greatest strength. There is always room for improvement, but Mayer thinks he is a more consistent performer than many of his competitors.
At the Tokyo Olympics, Mayer was among the top six competitors in seven sports out of a total of 21 competitors. At this year’s World Championships, he reached the top six in six sports.
The Paris home games dictate the conditions
After his world record, Mayer received a phone call from Ashton Eaton. Eaton said he was proud of the achievement and joining the rare group of decathlon world record holders of the 2000s.
The surprise congratulations made Mayer emotional, but not overwhelmed. The same record is still valid, but part of the reason is the Frenchman’s own difficulties. At least the back and Achilles tendon have bothered and made it difficult to continue the rising curve.
At the same time, the limitations brought by age also begin to be encountered. Mayer turned 30 at the beginning of the year, so there are not many Olympians in particular. Mayer is also building his own competition calendar around them, where even the Los Angeles Games in the summer of 2028 are on the horizon.
The more important goal is two years away: the Paris Olympics, i.e. the home games. The main goal is also in mind at the European Championships in Munich, when Mayer sets out on his insanely daring attempt to grab double gold.
– I don’t know how my body will react. However, I’m not going to take any risks two years before Paris. If I feel any pain at all, I don’t believe in myself that I would give everything for the European Championship, Mayer admitted at the press conference.
However, Germany is attracted by the possibility of a new performance – to dominate both the world and Europe in less than a month. To an achievement that would nudge Mayer towards the position he has dared to dream of as he gets older.
– I have always admired French legends. Teddy Rineria, Zinedine Zidane, Martin Fourcade… I don’t put myself on the same level as them, but one day I would like to be a legend myself, he painted after the World Cup According to L’Equipe (you will switch to another service).