Brian Slaughter Won the European Decathlon title again in Pescara, Italy in fine style at the European Masters Track and Field Championship. In doing so he won three of the ten scheduled events along the way and a massive points total 6763 which will need to be ratified for a British Record. In varied conditions the weather was switching between hot sun and full rain storms but as a championship performer Brian was not rattled.
The first event of 100m Brian was drawn in the final heat and lane 7 and he delivered on a solid performance with a season best time. Next was the long Jump as he pulled out another season’s best for the second furthest jump of the day. The Shot Putt delivered the furthest by anyone with his 10.77 and this put him into the lead on 2250 points. Some of his other rivals traditionally have been better high jumpers and therefore Brian always treats this as a damage limitation event. Despite this Brian finished with a 5th best performance. The last event of the day being the 400m was by this time being staged at 8.30pm in the evening and Brian was in heat 3 of four being run. He won this but in the last heat one of his Germany rivals slightly faster and was therefore just 25points behind him at the end of the first day on 3533points.
Day two always starts with a great test to see how people how rested up and body recovered ready for the sprint hurdles. Brian was in the first and top seeded race and in lane 2 and against rivals from Italy, Germany, France, Greece, Slovenia and Estonia. He run well but couldn’t quite hold of the challenge from Italy and Germany but still recorded the 3rd fastest time of the day in 18.13s. Looking forward to one of his favourite event the discus was next and the weather had taken a turn for the worst and other started to struggle but Brian pulled out the 2nd best distance of the day with 35.75m to gain back the overall lead. The pole vault saw some sun come out again and a 2.60 performance for the 4th highest but his main rival from Italy recorded a higher performance to take the overall lead for the first time, who has been a past world record holder. Brian knew this was his main challenge and that they both had similar distances for the Javelin as the time approach 9pm and that he was now over a 100points behind. Despite more rain Brian won that event and reduced the points deficit down to 87 points going into the 1500m. Running one of these after two days of intense competition and at 10pm is not ideal. He calculated in his head an 18s margin was required to overhaul the total required and get another International Title and British Record added his others. However for the first lap he followed another Italian and was unaware at that stage his main rival was trying to stay with them. On the second lap Brian fully committed to taking the lead and never looked back and won by a clear 16s but not from his Italy rival as he had suffered from trying to stay with the pace. Brian’s time was 5.57.24 and main him European Champion with 6763 points. His German rival had also performed well to take him up to the silver position.
Top 10 results had all different countries.
- Brian Slaughter – GB&NI 6763points
- Detlef Doepping – Germany 6411
- Hubert Indra – Italy 6160
- Michael Cooke – Sweden 6098
- Basdekis Pavlos – Greece 5942
- Peter Sladek – Slovakia 5702
- Karl Wieland – Austria 5668
- Twan Bongers – Netherlands 5206
- Bercy Niang – France 5096