Walton Athletic Club were well represented last weekend in the annual 1-hour Speed Decathlon and Heptathlon competition held in Basingstoke (now in its 4th year). Growing in popularity attracting two competitors from the Netherlands and one from Sweden this year, Chris Ness (M45) and Jon Ladley (M35) both competed in this unique, friendly event that saw them complete all ten decathlon disciplines in the correct order that requires you to start the final 1500m within 60 minutes of the start.
Ness and Ladley acquitted themselves well with a total of 3899 and 3909 points respectively to finish around mid-order overall.
Particularly fine performances from Ladley with this being his first time back to multi-event competition in a long while, moving seamlessly through each of the disciplines that saw him post a seemingly effortless 3.00m in the pole vault with plenty to spare (apart from time itself!), before finishing up with the single fastest 1500m of the day across all competitors in 4:40.9.
With the event format now including a team competition (age and gender graded points apply) it also provides a great opportunity for anywhere between 2 to 4 athletes to team together to take on this combined events challenge in 2018.