Eaton to Defend World Indoor Title

Published by IAAF on November 2, 2013

World and Olympic Decathlon champion Ashton Eaton will defend his Heptathlon title at the 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Sopot, Poland.

It will be his only combined events competition of the year, however, as the US all-rounder will take a break from the Decathlon during the summer in an attempt to rest his body ahead of the 2015 IAAF World Championships in Beijing.

Eaton triumphed at the 2012 World Indoor Championships in Istanbul, breaking his own World indoor record in the Heptathlon with a score of 6645. It was his third World indoor record for the seven-event discipline, having set marks of 6499 in 2010 and 6568 in 2011.

Three months after his victory in the Turkish city, he added the Decathlon World record to his CV, scoring 9039 at the US Championships.

Since then, he went on to win Olympic gold in London and World Championships gold in Moscow, becoming the first man in history to concurrently hold both global titles as well as the world indoor and outdoor combined events records.

If Eaton succeeds in Sopot, he will join fellow US decathlete Bryan Clay as the only man to win back-to-back World indoor Heptathlon titles.

The combined events in Sopot will feature eight athletes in both the men’s and women’s contests. The top three from the 2013 world season lists will be invited, as well as the winners of the IAAF Combined Events Challenge. Three other athletes will be invited based on results from the 2014 indoor season with the final place being offered at the IAAF’s discretion.