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Injuries healed, but confidence dented, Õiglane’s first decathlon in almost two years was Götzis in May. “I thought I was in shape to do 8200. But after the first event I knew it was going to be a struggle. Now it’s a big boys’ game. When the first day was done, I was so exhausted. It was hard to stay with the boys.”

Physically, my body’s getting stronger as I get older. And mentally, what I know now that I didn’t then is that lots of athletes struggle. My problem was I saw it as a weakness. The best lesson I learned is not to be too hard on myself. And I’m a more complete athlete as a result.” You never know,” she says. “I’ve always been worried that 2019 was my peak, because then Covid happened and I had my Achilles rupture and the momentum I was building towards my peak got short changed and cut off. I could name five people who could finish between first, second and third. That’s what I mean by the depth. Whereas sometimes the heptathlon can be a two-person race and then everyone else is fighting for the bronze, I feel like this year is quite open and I don’t know where it’s going to go.” In 2016, I saw myself as a talent, but suddenly I was European champion and became a famous face in sport in Holland. And I was scared," she says. "I did a good job in Amsterdam, but then a week after I thought, I need to do it again.I never expected to perform that well. So, it was quite overwhelming.” Two years ago, behind the decathlon medal-winning trio of Kevin Mayer, Rico Freimuth and Kai Kazmirek at the World Championships in London, a breakthrough was happening. 23-year old Estonian Janek Õiglane was having the performance of his career, finishing fourth with a lifetime best of 8371.If I can get the speed work done in that amount of time then I will go,” she said. “If I’m a medal contender I’ll go. But I don’t want to go to the world championships as I’ve come into this event. I want to be more prepared. It’s a long way to go to not be quite ready.” After climbing 14 places to sixth during the decathlon in London, a superb javelin PB of 71.73m had moved Õiglane into fourth, where he remained, setting six PBs overall. He lights up as he recalls the competition. In Doha it was exciting and I had a big battle,” Johnson-Thompson adds. “But with this one I feel completely calm and full of experience. I’ve done it so many times now and it never gets any easier. But you can approach it in a different manner. She now trains with Jazmin Sawyers, who joined up with Moore just after Johnson-Thompson. The pair have known each other since young kids, even before competing against each other at English Schools.

You know, I’ve been competing against Jaz [Sawyers] since 2007,” Johnson-Thompson adds. “There’s videos of us, not just English Schools but in the young athlete leagues. It just feels right to be in the same training group and going for the same goals. So yeah, it just feels really good and she’s such a good energy and positive person to have around so it helps me out or too. My heart wasn’t really in it and I didn’t have the motivation to go on,” she said. “It was a bit of a push to come out here. I haven’t been able to train but I thought it would be OK. Obviously it wasn’t. It’s not only the training, I haven’t been able to focus on athletics at all.”

Back in the game

I was quite nervous,” says Vetter of her long jump. “It was my first competition in a long time. I was pleased with the results, but also about how I felt as an athlete. I could enjoy it. Six forty-two. That’s good. And it’s good for outdoors because long jump is such an important event in the heptathlon. I couldn’t walk properly for two months,” he explains. “It was three weeks before Götzis when I started sprint training and I thought, ‘ok, Götzis is just coming too fast, I need to say no’. But then two weeks before Ratingen I ruptured my hammy. It was bad. The season was over.”

He kept his cool. In the penultimate event he launched the javelin to a PB of 72.46m, second only to eventual champion Niklas Kaul’s 79.05m. And finally, Õiglane finished sixth with 8297, his second-best score ever.Vetter is strong across seven events, but she is dominant in the throws. Her shot put PB is 16m, and her javelin PB of 58.41m is only exceeded in a heptathlon by Nafi Thiam’s 59.32m from Götzis 2017, and specialist Barbara Spotakova’s 60.90m from 2012.

Ennis-Hill started day two in third place, behind Theisen-Eaton and the Dutch athlete Dafne Schippers, but after a moderate long jump of 6.16m and a javelin of 42.60m – both way below her best – she had slipped to fifth. Schippers withdrew with a knee injury after the javelin, bumping her up a place, but Ennis-Hill was still in a tight scrum of competitors going into the final event of the day, the 800m. He scored 8050, well short of the World Championships 8200 qualifying score. The next meeting was the European Combined Events Team Championships in Lutsk. In the 100m, Õiglane didn’t hear the recall gun and sprinted almost the full distance before realising the error. In the re-run a few minutes later, he managed only 11.40, compared to 11.28 in Götzis. I’m going well right now, and I’m feeling happy,” she says. “But a year and a half ago, it was different. And it’s good to share that too. I follow Jazmin Sawyers – the British long jumper – on social media and I think we need more women like her, sharing when things aren’t going so well, as well as good results. That’s really important for younger girls. I hope I can do that a little more.She knew she needed to run a time of 2:33.02 to ensure she made the Olympic qualification standard – but the way she stormed into the lead from the off showed she wanted to make a statement. Pressure can be an effective force when conditions are positive, but corrosive when things aren’t going so well. Vetter’s success continued into 2018 with fourthplace in Götzis and fifthplace at the European Championships in Berlin, but then the strain started to take its toll. In 2019, she was unable to finish her combined events competitions at the European Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Decastar in Talence and the World Championships in Doha. Adrianna Sułek, who is a world indoor and European silver medallist in the pentathlon and heptathlon respectively, is also out of Budapest as she is pregnant. Johnson-Thompson’s path to a medal has perhaps been made easier with the withdrawal of double Olympic and world heptathlon champion Nafi Thiam. After almost a decade with his previous coach, Õiglane moved in late 2017 to work with Andrei Nazarov, the Estonian former decathlete who had a best of 8322. He joined the training group which included 2015 world bronze medallist Laura Ikauniece, 2016 Olympic long jump finalist Ksenija Balta, and combined eventer/hurdler Karl Erik Nazarov.