Olympic champion won World Combined Events Challenge (0)
Czech Roman Sebrle is the winner of the 2004 IAAF World Combined Events Challenge. The standings were calculated after the completion of the final qualification competition, the Decaster meeting in Talence, France last weekend (25 / 26 Sep).
The outcome of the Challenge which was based on points accumulated at any three of this year’s nine qualifying competitions saw the winners of the recent Olympic Games, the penultimate event of the series, take the year long Challenge titles too.
In the men’s standing, 29 year-old Roman Sebrle who also won the World Indoor Heptathlon title in Budapest last March, finished the Challenge to claim the 30,000$US prize with a total of 25,952pts (average 8650.7). This figure was composed of his winning performances in Gotzis (8842pts), Athens Olympics (8893pts), and Talence (8217pts).
Sebrle, the World record holder, had finished second in last year’s edition of the Challenge behind World champion Tom Pappas but because of a foot injury in Athens the American could not complete three Decathlons this year to follow-up on his good marks in Gotzis (8732) and the USA Champs (8517).
Finishing second in the 2004 Challenge was another American Bryan Clay, the Olympic silver medallist, with a total of 25,602 (average 8534.0), which in the process claimed 20,000$US. Completing a replica of the Athens podium, the Olympic bronze medallist Dmitri Karpov of Kazakhstan finished third (25336; average 8445.3) and so won 15,000$US.