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The depth of the competition is as strong as it’s ever been. So how open is the heptathlon going to be? Before Thiam dropped out, I felt like it was very much like a head-to-head between Thiam and Anna Hall. And now I don’t know what it’s going to take to win a medal. I don’t know what it’s going to take to win. So that’s why I feel like it’s open.

Vetter, with her coach and father Ronald Vetter, worked out a training strategy to nurture her body and channel her strengths. She made her Götzis debut aged 21 in 2014, and her career then took off on an upward trajectory. Gold at the European Championships in 2016 on home soil, followed by her first Olympics in Rio and bronze at the World Athletics Championships in London in 2017 with a national record of 6636 points. But the success caught Vetter by surprise. He scored 8050, well short of the World Championships 8200 qualifying score. The next meeting was the European Combined Events Team Championships in Lutsk. In the 100m, Õiglane didn’t hear the recall gun and sprinted almost the full distance before realising the error. In the re-run a few minutes later, he managed only 11.40, compared to 11.28 in Götzis. Of course, I had physical injuries with my knee,” she explains. “But it was more than that. I was putting too much pressure on myself.I had a hard time enjoying athletics, and I had a battle inside my head. If you hurt your hamstring, you ask how long it takes to recover. But with emotions, I didn’t know how long it would take to recover.And it was hard to talk about. I was asking myself – what’s wrong with me? Am I still a good athlete?”Pressure can be an effective force when conditions are positive, but corrosive when things aren’t going so well. Vetter’s success continued into 2018 with fourthplace in Götzis and fifthplace at the European Championships in Berlin, but then the strain started to take its toll. In 2019, she was unable to finish her combined events competitions at the European Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Decastar in Talence and the World Championships in Doha. So, to keep motivated, I made myself little goals. Little training or monthly goals, so that I could see progress. That helped me a lot.Just to focus on those goals and technical points. And then you see the results.”

Injuries healed, but confidence dented, Õiglane’s first decathlon in almost two years was Götzis in May. “I thought I was in shape to do 8200. But after the first event I knew it was going to be a struggle. Now it’s a big boys’ game. When the first day was done, I was so exhausted. It was hard to stay with the boys.” Johnson-Thompson’s path to a medal has perhaps been made easier with the withdrawal of double Olympic and world heptathlon champion Nafi Thiam. Vetter has been in the game for a long time, although she is still only 28. She started her career in the European and world age-group championships of 2011-13 but injury got in the way of all of those competitions. After the first hurdle I thought, ok, now it’s over,” he recalls. “I don’t know what kept me going, but I somehow finished. I’m so sad about Kevin, Lindon, everyone. I want to compete in the best field in the world.”We are trying some new stuff, and I love it,”Õiglane says. “Strength and conditioning are a lot better, and sprinting and lactic training is different from before. I’m a pretty slow guy for a decathlete. Karl Erik is a lot faster so I’m pushing myself thanks to him. And Ksenija and Laura are top athletes so it’s good to see how they get ready for competition.” Budapest will be Johnson-Thompson’s sixth world championships and she will be hoping that experience will be a factor when the competition gets going. It makes you remember what it was like to conquer the world and whet the appetite to have another shot at it? Yeah, at any major champs everyone who goes to the start line always thinks, what if? Apart from me last year – I kinda knew I wasn’t in shape, so it was just like, ‘what’s gonna happen, more than if’? And so I’m really happy that in the past year, I’ve turned around and I’m hopefully in the mix. That’s all that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be, in the mix.” You never know,” she says. “I’ve always been worried that 2019 was my peak, because then Covid happened and I had my Achilles rupture and the momentum I was building towards my peak got short changed and cut off. I was quite nervous,” says Vetter of her long jump. “It was my first competition in a long time. I was pleased with the results, but also about how I felt as an athlete. I could enjoy it. Six forty-two. That’s good. And it’s good for outdoors because long jump is such an important event in the heptathlon.

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