One week after winning the Oceania Championships, the opening leg of the 2015 IAAF Combined Events Challenge, New Zealand&rsquo;s Brent Newdick will travel to the Italian city of Florence for the Multistars meeting on Friday and Saturday (15-16), the second stop in the series.It will be the third consecutive year that the Luigi Ridolfi Stadium has hosted the meeting, which was previously held in Desenzano del Garda.Newdick won the Oceania title with 7140. Although it was some way shy of his 8114 lifetime best, he didn&rsquo;t need to be at his best as he won by almost 1000 points. But the two-time World University Games medallist won&rsquo;t be afforded the same luxury in Florence.He will face 2013 European indoor bronze medallist Mihail Dudas. The 25-year-old hasn&rsquo;t completed a decathlon since setting a Serbian record of 8275 at the 2013 IAAF World Championships. After missing most of 2014 through injury, he returned earlier this year to win the national indoor heptathlon title with 5535.Like Newdick, Poland&rsquo;s Pawel Wiesiolek has previously made it on to the podium at the Multistars meeting, finishing third in 2013 with a personal best of 7727. He won the Polish indoor heptathlon title earlier this year with a PB of 5986 and went on to compete at the European Indoor Championships.If the likes of Dudas and Newdick aren&rsquo;t at their best, Britain&rsquo;s Liam Ramsay could be the one to watch. Already this year he has set PBs in the 100m, 110m hurdles, long jump and high jump, and the 22-year-old looks set to improve on the PB of 7822 he set when winning in Woerden last year.Joining him in the traditionally big British contingent is Ben Gregory, who has a PB of 7725 and has finished sixth at the past two Commonwealth Games.Italian hopes are carried by Simone Cairoli who won his second consecutive national indoor heptathlon title in February with a personal best of 5683.Three years after winning in Desenzano with a PB of 6109, Sofia Yfantidou of Greece will be bidding to win her second Multistars title. The 30-year-old, who excels in the javelin, has already contested a heptathlon this year, scoring 5531 in Greece last month with a series that included a 55.60m javelin throw. But she took it easy in the 800m on that occasion, so should be set to score higher in Florence.Yfantidou will face Belarusian champion Katsiaryna Netsviatayeva. The 25-year-old finished runner-up at Multistars last year, her first of seven heptathlons in 2014, and later set a PB of 6121. Earlier this year she scored a pentathlon PB of 4489, setting indoor PBs in four of the five disciplines.Canada&rsquo;s Pan American Cup winner Jill Drouin, sister of Olympic high jump bronze medallist Derek Drouin, will be making her Multistars debut. The 28-year-old has a best of 5986.Commonwealth bronze medallist Jess Taylor will be looking to add her name to the list of British athletes who have made the podium at Multistars, joining the likes of Jessica Ennis-Hill, Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Morgan Lake. Compatriot and namesake Jess Tappin will also be in Florence. The 24-year-old finished seventh at Multistars last year and went on to score a PB of 5770 one month later.Belgium, another country with a strong combined events tradition, will be represented by 18-year-old Hanne Maudens, who finished fourth in the long jump at last year&rsquo;s Youth Olympics.Diego Sampaolo for the IAAF

One week after winning the Oceania Championships, the opening leg of the 2015 IAAF Combined Events Challenge, New Zealand’s Brent Newdick will travel to the Italian city of Florence for the Multistars meeting on Friday and Saturday (15-16), the second stop in the series.

Dudas, Ramsay and Yfantidou among favourites in Florence

Experienced New Zealander Brent Newdick saw off the challenge of two teenage compatriots to win the decathlon at the Oceania Championships, the opening leg of the 2015 IAAF Combined Events Challenge, in the Australian city of Cairns on Saturday (9). Newdick, an 8114 decathlete at his best and two-time World University Games medallist, tallied a relatively modest 7140 points to beat a pair of 18-year-olds in Aaron Booth and Alex Mander. The winner&rsquo;s cause was helped considerably when Booth failed to clear a height in the high jump on day one of the competition, costing him about 800 points and restricting him to a total of 6183.Up until that point, Booth trailed Newdick by just 100 points. Booth was quicker in the 100m, running 11.31 to Newdick's 11.45. Newdick then produced season's bests of 7.05m in the long jump and 13.56m in the shot to move into the overall lead.At the end of the first day, Newdick led by more than 800 points. Instead of taking it easy, he recorded more season's bests on day two, clocking 15.70 in the 110m hurdles, clearing 4.40m in the pole vault and throwing 53.85m in the javelin.If the decathlon was a Kiwi triumph, the women&rsquo;s heptathlon was anything but with Veronica Torr withdrawing when in the lead after five events and heading for a score of 5500 or better. Torr scored 4188 points over the first five events.With Torr out, the win on Sunday went to Australia&rsquo;s Sarah Wood with a total of 5052. Although some 300 points shy of her PB, her 1.76m leap in the high jump was the best of the competition and just two centimetres shy of her lifetime best.The Oceania Championships were the first round of the challenge which now moves to Europe for two further early-season events at the famous venues of Florence and Gotzis .The Multistars 28th Trofei Zerneri Acciai will be staged at the Stadio Ridolfi in the Italian city of Florence this Friday and Saturday, but it is at the 41st Hypo Meeting in Gotzis, Austria, at the end of the month (30-31 May) when the challenge should really start to heat up.Serbia&rsquo;s 2008 world junior bronze medallist Mihail Dudas, with a personal best of 8275 in finishing 14th at the Moscow 2013 World Championships, heads the entry list in the decathlon in Florence, with Katsiaryna Netsviatayeva of Belarus atop the heptathlon entries. Her personal best of 6121 was set last year. However, the Gotzis heptathlon features the return to combined event competition of Olympic champion Jessica Ennis-Hill for the first time since her home soil triumph in London. Merely being the first British finisher will be a challenge as compatriot Katarina Johnson-Thompson, the 2014 Gotzis winner, will also compete.Britain&rsquo;s world junior champion Morgan Lake, who turns 18 on Tuesday, will also compete in Gotzis, though it might be expecting a little too much for her to challenge her older rivals.Canada&rsquo;s world silver medallist Brianne Theisen-Eaton and Dutch star Dafne Schippers are also in the Gotzis field. Schippers, the European sprints double gold medallist last year, will be using the event to gauge whether she will contest the sprints or the combined event later in the year in Beijing.Eelco Sintnicolaas in the decathlon gives the Netherlands a strong entry in both competitions, while world record-holder and Olympic champion Ashton Eaton and Berlin and two-time world champion Trey Hardee fly the US flag.The race for the Combined Events Challenge will have another focal point at the World Championships in Beijing on 22-30 August before the final event in Talence, France on 19-20 September.In other events at the Oceania Championships, world youth championships-bound Brandon Herrigan compiled an impressive treble in the under-18 sprints and hurdles.Herrigan won the 100m in 10.71, the 200m in 21.71 and the 110m hurdles in 13.84. The latter two performances were championship records, the hurdles being just outside his personal best of 13.71.Herrigan will compete in the hurdles in Cali this year, and alongside sprint sensation Jack Hale in the 200m.Len Johnson for the IAAF

Experienced New Zealander Brent Newdick saw off the challenge of two teenage compatriots to win the men’s decathlon at the Oceania Championships, the opening leg of the 2015 IAAF Combined Events Challenge, in the Australian city of Cairns on Saturday (9). 

Newdick and Wood take opening IAAF Combined Events Challenge victories

New Zealand&rsquo;s Brent Newdick faces a challenge from two young compatriots as the IAAF Combined Events Challenge for 2015 gets under way at the Oceania Championships in Cairns on Friday (8).Newdick last surpassed the 8000-point mark in 2012, the year he finished 12th in the decathlon at the London Olympics. He has not been near that level since, but he may need to find something to stay ahead of the competition in Cairns.In February, Newdick won the decathlon at the New Zealand Combined Events Championships from one of his main rivals in Cairns, 18-year-old Aaron Booth. But it was close: 7034 points to 6983.Booth won the decathlon at the Australian Junior Combined Events Championships in Brisbane in March with a total of 7379, competing with the junior implements. It only takes an incremental improvement since to have him right up with his older rival.Another New Zealand teenager, Alex Mander, is also in the field in Cairns.In the women&rsquo;s heptathlon, New Zealand&rsquo;s Veronica Torr, who has a best this year of 5665 from the Australian Championships in Brisbane, is clearly ahead of her rivals on past performances.Torr had been out of action for most of the past three years due to various injuries, but she now looks poised to get back to the level that brought her a PB of 5837 in 2012.<h3>Challenge curtain-raiser</h3>The Oceania Championships is the first of 12 combined event competitions &ndash; 14, if you count the European Cup Super League and 1st and 2nd Leagues as three competitions &ndash; comprising the IAAF Combined Events Challenge.From Cairns, the challenge moves to Europe for the traditional Multistars (Florence, 15-16 May) and Hypo-Meeting (Gotzis, 30-31 May) competitions, then across to North America for the Combined Events Capital Cup in Ottawa (19-20 June) and the US Championships in Eugene (25-28 June) which overlap with the Ratingen Combined Events (27-28 June).The European Combined Events Cup competitions are in Aubagne, France and Inowroclaw, Poland on 4-5 July before the challenge crosses to Asia for the FISU Universiade in Gwangju, Korea (8-12 July).The final three legs of the challenge will be the combined events at the Pan American Games in Toronto (18-26 July), the IAAF World Championships in Beijing (22-30 August) and the Decastars Meeting in Talence, France (19-20 September).The challenge is decided by the best three-competition points total. The 2014 men&rsquo;s winner, Germany&rsquo;s Rico Freimuth, was remarkably consistent across his three events &ndash; each of them in the 8300s with a high of 8356 and low of 8308 &ndash; while second-placed Eelco Sintnicolaas of the Netherlands bolstered his score with an 8478 at the European Championships. Freimuth&rsquo;s margin across the three competitions was 186 points.Yordani Garcia of Cuba was third ahead of Aleksiy Kasyanov of Ukraine and Great Britain&rsquo;s Ashley Bryant as five different nations were represented in the top five.In the women&rsquo;s challenge, Nadine Broersen of the Netherlands averaged more than 6500 points in her three scoring competitions. The world indoor champion won by 409 points from Germany&rsquo;s Carolin Schafer with another German athlete, Lilli Schwarzkopf, in third. Eliska Klucinova of the Czech Republic and Yana Maksimava of Belarus rounded out the top five.The timing and location of the World Championships will dictate the competition programme of most athletes this year, especially the combined eventers. The traditional Gotzis meeting will be the jumping off point for many.The heptathlon at the Austrian meeting will see Olympic champion Jessica Ennis-Hill return to combined event competition for the first time since her home soil triumph in London. She will find it hard enough to be the first British athlete home, much less the overall winner, as compatriots Katarina Johnson-Thompson, the 2014 Gotzis winner, and world junior champion Morgan Lake (just 17 years old) will also compete.Brianne Theisen-Eaton and Dafne Schippers have also been announced for Gotzis. Schippers, the double European sprint champion last year, is using the event to gauge whether she will contest the sprints or the combined events later in the year in Beijing.Eelco Sintnicolaas in the decathlon gives the Netherlands a strong entry in both competitions, while world record-holder and Olympic champion Ashton Eaton and two-time world champion Trey Hardee fly the US flag.Germany will also play a strong hand in Gotzis with Freimuth contesting the decathlon and Schafer and Schwarzkopf down for the heptathlon.It seems the competition will be hot from the first event to the last in the 2015 IAAF Combined Events Challenge.Len Johnson for the IAAF

New Zealand’s Brent Newdick faces a challenge from two young compatriots as the IAAF Combined Events Challenge for 2015 gets under way at the Oceania Championships in Cairns on Friday (8).

Dudas, Ramsay and Yfantidou among favourites in Florence

Newdick and Wood take opening IAAF Combined Events Challenge victories

Experience vs youth as IAAF Combined Events Challenge gets under way in Cairns