Poland’s Hubert Troscianka became the first athlete in history to surpass 8500 points in the U20 decathlon, breaking the world U20 record with his score of 8514* at the European U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland, on Friday (8).
With that performance, the 19-year-old improved on the previous world U20 decathlon record of 8435 set by Germany’s Niklas Kaul during the 2017 edition of the European U20 Championships in Grosseto.
Troscianka opened his campaign by clocking a PB of 10.74 in the 100m. The world U20 silver medallist went on to leap 7.26m in the long jump, throw 15.48m in the shot put and clear 1.94m in the high jump before storming to a PB and world U20 400m decathlon best of 46.21.
That saw him regain the overall lead ahead of Netherlands’ Luuk Pelkmans, who had moved into top spot following the high jump, and Troscianka finished the first day on 4361 points. Pelkmans was second on 4294 points at that stage, while Germany’s Paul Gunther sat in third place on 4075.
Troscianka started day two by clocking 14.23 in the 110m hurdles and threw 43.36m in the discus. He then cleared a PB of 4.80m in the pole vault and launched the javelin out to a championship decathlon best and PB of 68.87m.
The world record was within reach and he cliched it with a 1500m run of 4:28.59 – taking his tally to 8514 to add 79 points to Kaul’s previous world U20 record.
Pelkmans secured silver with a PB of 8293, while bronze went to Switzerland’s Leon Krummenacher (7972 PB).
In other action, Italy’s Erika Saraceni broke a 24-year-old championship record to win the triple jump with a PB of 14.24m (0.0m/s).
Great Britain’s Innes FitzGerald added European U20 5000m gold to her two cross country titles, running 15:09.04, while Hungary’s Armin Szabados threw 82.91m for the hammer title and Dutch thrower Jarno Van Daalen launched the shot 21.07m to get gold in that event. Van Daalen will return to contest the discus on Saturday.
*Subject to the usual ratification procedure