The Czech Republic had by far the strongest team on paper at the European Combined Events Team Championships First League in Ribeira Brava, Portugal and the Czechs duly topped the standings ahead of Finland and Poland.
The Czechs took individual wins in both the heptathlon and decathlon and had three of the top five scorers in the decathlon standings despite European silver medallist Adam Sebastian Helcelet not finishing in the 1500m.
In his first decathlon of the season, Jiri Sykora won the individual decathlon title with 8104 points - just missing his lifetime best of 8121 points which he set in Gotzis three years ago.
Sykora also withheld the challenge of teammate Jan Dolezal who produced superior individual marks to Sykora in the last four events - including lifetime bests in the discus (49.56m) and javelin (65.02m) - which took him to a score of 8083 points, his third decathlon in excess of the 8000 point-barrier in 2019.
Sweden’s Fredrik Samuelsson finished third with 7930 points, one place ahead of Polish champion Pawel Wiesiolek with 7753 points. The third Czech counter Marek Lukas was fifth with 7743 points.
In the heptathlon, overnight leader Katerina Cachova won the individual title with 6034 points ahead of Finland’s Jutta Heikkinen (5795 points) and Poland’s Paulina Ligarska (5589 points).
The Czechs didn’t pack quite so formidably in the heptathlon but Barbora Dvorakova finished seventh with a season’s best of 5438 points with Tereza Sinova, 17, their third counter in 14th with 5117 points.
With the top three scorers to count in both events, the Czechs amassed a tally of 40,519 points ahead of both Finland (38,212 points) and Poland (37,319 points).
Full results here.