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| Multi-events legend Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic at the European Athletics and Paris 2011 LOC official press conference on Saturday. |
When Roman Å ebrle picked up heptathlon bronze at the European Indoor Championships in Turin two years ago it broke a series of victories at this event for the Czech superstar stretching back to the Ferry-Dusika-Hallenstadion in Vienna 2002.
It was also the last major championship medal won by the European record holder in a glittering career that goes back 12 years when he took bronze at the 1999 world indoor championships in Maebashi.
But the 36-year-old insists he’s not finished yet and he’ll kick-start his bid for a fourth European heptathlon crown on Saturday again ranked top of the continent, and confident he has the form and fitness to win a tenth Olympic, world or European title.
“I feel good,” he said on the eve of the championships at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy. “I expect to get a good result and I’m looking forward to the competition.
“I have the experience to win but I don’t think it will just be about experience,” he added. “There are lots of athletes who want to win. But I’m in good shape.”
Å ebrle scored his Europe-leading total of 6117 at the Czech national trials in February, giving him a mere three-point advantage at the top of the European rankings over Estonia’s Andres Raja who beat him in Tallinn earlier this winter.
With Dutchmen Ingmar Vos and Eelco Sintnicolaas, Russian pair Vasiliy Kharlamov and Aleksandr Kislov, and Belarussia’s Andrey Kravchenko in the field, Å ebrle believes his chances will come down to two or three crucial events.
“The pole vault will be the one for me,” he said. “But all the other events must be good too. I need to score well in the long jump as well, and have a good high jump.”
After missing last summer’s outdoor championships in Barcelona with injury, Å ebrle is clearly keen to make his mark on the world again, especially after seeing the brilliant American Ashton Eaton smash his own world heptathlon record in Tallinn.
“I have prepared hard for these European Championships,” he said. “I prepare harder for the indoor season than for outdoors.
“If I have a good indoor season then it is a good sign for me for the decathlon. We’ll see how I do here then I’ll rest before training hard again for the outdoors.”
As for the threat Eaton poses to his world decathlon record, set back in 2001, Å ebrle seems relaxed.
“This year my world record is ten years old,” he said of the 9026 points he scored at the Hypo meeting in Götzis at the end of May that year. “Ten years is nice, it’s great for me. If someone comes along now to take it, that’s OK with me.
“But 9000 points is very difficult and outdoors it will be harder for Ashton – he hasn’t got a good javelin throw. But then again his other events are so incredible he might not need to score well in the javelin.
“I look forward to competing against him.”
For now, though, that’s all in the future. For Å ebrle, a man with quite a past, the next step to the next medal begins with the heptathlon 60m in Paris at 09:00 on Saturday morning.