Sander Skotheim won the heptathlon gold in Tallinn and improved the European record

Norwegian athlete Sander Skotheim won the heptathlon event in Tallinn at the World Athletics Combined Series with 6484 points. The Glasgow 2024 world indoor silver medalist thus improved by 5 points the European record of Kevin Mayer, who had been at the top since 2017. Kevin Mayer’s previous record was set at the European Indoor Championships in Belgrade in 2017. Sander Skotheim’s achievement is also fifth in the all-time world indoor ranking.

After starting his heptathlon with 7.04 sec in the 60m, Sander Skotheim simply blew away his competitors in the long jump, where he achieved 8.19m.

Despite his weaker results than Kevin Mayer in the shot put (15.00m against 15.66m for the Frenchman) and in the high jump (2.06m against 2.10m for Kevin Mayer), Sander Skotheim finished the first day of the competition in Tallinn with 46 points ahead of the Frenchman’s European record.

The second day for Sander Skotheim began with an abandonment of Meyer’s record, after he achieved 8.04 sec in the 60m hurdles (7.88 sec for Meyer), and in the pole vault he achieved 5.25m (against 5.40m for Meyer). So everything had to be decided in the last event – 1,000m. There the Norwegian had to run under 2:38.29 min and he did it, finishing in 2:37.85 min.