One of the quieter morning sessions of the World Championships so far with the men’s decathletes taking centre stage. Medals were decided in the women’s 20km walk, and the men’s high jumpers began their championships with their qualification round. Full results for this session can be found here.

Men’s Decathlon Highlights

The morning session saw the men’s decathlon get underway with the 100m, long jump and shot put. It was business as usual for world record holder Ashton Eaton who openened his campaign in style with a 100m time of 10.23 seconds. Eaton remains in the lead after four events but his teammate, and two time world champion, Trey Hardee has been forced to withdraw due to a back injury sustained in the long jump.

Decathlon 100m

High Jump

Both Mutaz Essa Barshim and Bohdan Bondarenko had one failure at 2.29m before securing their final spots by virtue of the automatic qualifying mark of 2.31m, Derek Drouin joined them with a hugely impressive leap and should be among the medal contenders come the final on Sunday. 2011 champion Jesse Williams saw his challenge ended as the bar moved to 2.29m as did 2012 Olympic champion Ivan Ukhov who also failed to progress past 2.26m.

Barshim Post Qualification

Women’s 20km Walk

It was a game of Chinese whispers as Lu and Liu entered the birds nest stadium almost side by side, before some quick communication they crossed the line less than a second apart, Hong Liu the victor. Xiuzhi Lu took the silver medal with Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Olyanovska claiming bronze.

20km Walk Finishing Straight