I couldn’t walk properly for two months,” he explains. “It was three weeks before Götzis when I started sprint training and I thought, ‘ok, Götzis is just coming too fast, I need to say no’. But then two weeks before Ratingen I ruptured my hammy. It was bad. The season was over.” But after that I had a huge javelin throw, and then I knew I was going to do it. I am going to the World Champs!” Physically, my body’s getting stronger as I get older. And mentally, what I know now that I didn’t then is that lots of athletes struggle. My problem was I saw it as a weakness. The best lesson I learned is not to be too hard on myself. And I’m a more complete athlete as a result.” I had lost 100-150 points already,” he says. “It was mentally hard after that. But I needed to get the points for the team. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to drop out.”

He kept his cool. In the penultimate event he launched the javelin to a PB of 72.46m, second only to eventual champion Niklas Kaul’s 79.05m. And finally, Õiglane finished sixth with 8297, his second-best score ever. In Doha it was exciting and I had a big battle,” Johnson-Thompson adds. “But with this one I feel completely calm and full of experience. I’ve done it so many times now and it never gets any easier. But you can approach it in a different manner. If you are a man who loves high quality, classy and durable watches but doesn’t want to spend a lot, then this unit is a good option. My heart wasn’t really in it and I didn’t have the motivation to go on,” she said. “It was a bit of a push to come out here. I haven’t been able to train but I thought it would be OK. Obviously it wasn’t. It’s not only the training, I haven’t been able to focus on athletics at all.” After climbing 14 places to sixth during the decathlon in London, a superb javelin PB of 71.73m had moved Õiglane into fourth, where he remained, setting six PBs overall. He lights up as he recalls the competition.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 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.

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.Johnson-Thompson’s path to a medal has perhaps been made easier with the withdrawal of double Olympic and world heptathlon champion Nafi Thiam. 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.”