Dennis Leyckes won Ratingen title (0)
Ratingen, Germany – Dennis Leyckes was the "Decathlon King”, as finally Germany’s Decathletes woke up to their Olympic possibilities at the 7th Ruhrgas DLV Mehrkampf, the fourth event of the IAAF World Combined Events Challenge 2004, which concluded now.
Seven weeks before the start of the athletics at the Olympic Games, three German athletes qualified in Ratingen for Athens.
Suddenly three men had made more than 8000 points. Leyckes, the former World Junior Champion from 2000, won with a personal best of 8172 points. Second was Florian Schönbeck from Regensburg (8044), and Stefan Drews (8032) from the north of Germany was third.
Bad luck though for Under 23 European champion Andre Niklaus. The young guy from Berlin finished the Decathlon after the Discus event, because of a knee injury.
As to who goes to Athens, this is undecided still and the European-Cup this week may well decide the selection. Besides Andre Niklaus and Mike Maczey has a chance to make the magic mark of 8000 points.
Quite incredibly before Ratingen the Germans had to fight to have any athletes qualified for the Olympic Decathlon but now they have more athletes than tickets!
Ratingen 2004 - results