Mission accomplished.
Landed in Reunion to validate his ticket for the decathlon of the Tokyo Olympic Games, Kevin Mayer fulfilled his contract perfectly on Saturday by achieving the minimums (8552 points).
Everything went as planned for the Frenchman (28), forced to go through this formality due to his retirement due to injury at the Doha Worlds in 2019. The 2017 world champion was himself on the initiative. of this meeting, just to get rid of this chore as quickly as possible from the start of the qualification period, on December 1st.
He held his place by winning without really shaking.
With a world record of 9126 points, Mayer did not have much to fear, the bar to score his ticket for Japan being set at 8350 points by the International Athletics Federation.
But there was still a small doubt, "Kéké the embers" not having overcome the 10 tests for more than two years.
The questions were quickly swept aside and there was hardly any suspense.
Mayer experienced a little fright on Friday during the first day by biting his first test to the length, reviving the specter of his zero point on this discipline which had destroyed his hopes at Euro-2018.
But he was able to ensure the blow on his second attempt (7.40 m) to avoid a terrible disappointment.
Saturday, it was the pole that was the big unknown.
Usually one of his strong points (personal best at 5.45 m outdoors, 5.60 m indoors), the exercise has caused some problems in recent months for the French, who is won by the fear of jumping, badly common among pole vaulters.
But there too, he knew how to do violence not to tempt the devil and be satisfied with a bar at 4.65 m on only six strides.
Relief
Mayer had warned: there was no question for him of chasing any record and taking reckless risks.
We should not deviate from the main objective: to obtain the precious sesame for Tokyo to embark on the preparation of the Olympics in all serenity.
However, we found at times the Mayer of the great days, as in the 110 m hurdles where he managed to improve his personal best (13 sec 54).
Without particularly shining, he still achieved the 4th score of his career, which bodes well for the Tokyo Olympics, where he will try to glean the only title missing from his record.
“There is relief, it's huge pressure and less weight,” he said.
“I hadn't done a qualifying decathlon since 2016, it's something I don't like very much.
I was not at all settled and it was two difficult days.
I did not do any perf except on the hurdles and that suggests a lot of things since I still made more than 8500 points.
Now we will let the juice rise to Tokyo and I will focus on what to do for the Olympics.
A sign that the time had come for deliverance for Mayer, it was with a clean shaven head that he allowed himself to take part in the ultimate test (1500 m) in tribute to the French Gaël Querin, who competed in his last decathlon at 33.
He also did not fail to tease the Australian prodigy Ashley Moloney (20) on arrival, who has just achieved the feat of accumulating 4,613 points on the first day of the decathlon of the Queensland Championships.
"I'm going to smoke it," he blurted out with a big smile.
“A decathlon takes two days but it's incredible, it's light years from what I could do at his age, and even now.
But I like to go and find the youngsters and I will try to keep my territory ”.
Competition is prevented.
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