Switzerland’s Simon Ehammer and Adrianna Sulek from Poland will target back-to-back victories at the X-Athletics Combined Events meeting in Aubière in France on 28-29 January, the first World Athletics Combined Events Tour Silver meeting of 2023.
Ehammer won at this meeting last year with a Swiss record of 6285 points, leaping out to 8.26m in the long jump en route to a victory which was followed by medals in all three major championships in 2022.
Ehammer went on to improve his Swiss heptathlon record to 6363 points at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade where he won silver behind Damian Warner before he came away with long jump bronze at the World Athletics Championships and decathlon silver at the European Athletics Championships.
Not only did Ehammer win the heptathlon in Aubiere last year, he also led a Swiss 1-2-3 in the heptathlon while Sulek won the pentathlon with 4569 points ahead of Spain’s Maria Vicente with 4495 points.
And a sizeable Swiss contingent will be making the journey to Aubiere again later this month with the aim of securing a spot in the combined events fields at the Istanbul 2023 European Athletics Indoor Championships from 2-5 March.
Finley Gaio, who finished third behind Ehammer last year, will be contesting the heptathlon in Aubiere while former world U18 champion Geraldine Ruckstuhl continues her comeback from injury in the pentathlon.
Like Ehammer, Sulek used her victory in Aubiere as a springboard to a breakthrough season which saw her break Polish records in both the pentathlon (4851 points) and the heptathlon (6672 points).
The indefatigable Pole competed in no fewer than nine pentathlon or heptathlon competitions in 2022 and the 23-year-old was a pillar of consistency throughout the season, finishing first or second in eight of those nine competitions. She was deservedly crowned the winner of the World Athletics Combined Events Tour as well.
Sulek had a particularly auspicious season in the major championships. Like Ehammer, Sulek won silver medals at the World Indoor Championships and European Athletics Championships and also finished fourth in the World Athletics Championships with a national record score of 6672 points.