Eelco Sintnicolaas on his hero Roman Sebrle

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European Indoor heptathlon champ Eelco Sintnicolaas, of the Netherlands, on his hero Roman Sebrle.

“I respect and look up to lots of the great decathletes in our sport, but like many multi-eventers from my generation, I look up to Roman Sebrle [the Czech former world record holder and 2004 Olympic champion].

“I first met Roman when I competed at the 2009 European Indoor Championships in Torino. I came into the competition as a world leader and he asked me, ‘how come you have only scored 7500 outdoors for the decathlon and you have a heptathlon best of a little over 6000pts?’

"I told him the previous year I’d been too sick to compete at my best. It was impressive for me to speak to the world record holder. The next time I saw him was at the Gotzis meeting in Austria.

"There he really welcomed me as part of the decathlon family, which was really nice of him. That is the thing about the combined eventers, they are all so friendly, and that is something I really like.”