The reigning World and Olympic Decathlon champion Ashton Eaton is to defend is World Championship Heptathlon title at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Sopot, Poland.
The news comes after news broke via Runnerspace that Eaton plans to try his hand at the 400mh which was confirmed by the man himself on Twitter.
Hmm, words out. I did do 150m over shadow hurdles before Moscow…should be fun. https://t.co/xATYYOzAkn
— Ashton Eaton (@AshtonJEaton) October 18, 2013
The American has won everything available to him in the multi-discipline event after taking gold at the 2012 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Istanbul, Turkey where he set the world record in the process with a score of 6645 and won by 574 points.
Just three months later Eaton went on to break the Decathlon world record at the US Olympic Trials later the same year with a winning score of 9039 (the previous world record of 9026 points was set by Roman Šebrle) and beating defending world champion Trey Hardee in the process.
He proceeded to win both the 2012 Olympic gold in London and the 2013 World Championship title in Moscow by 198 and 139 points respectively, finishing both years with comfortable world leads.
At the World Indoor Championships he will face seven other athletes, with the top three from the 2013 world season lists being invited alongside the winner of the IAAF Combined Events Challenge and the top three performers from the 2014 indoor season. One further place in the event will be offered at the IAAF’s discretion.
