Thorpe Cup
The Thorpe Cup is an international competition between decathletes and heptathletes from Germany and the United States . It took place for the first time in 1993 and was held in the Hessian town of Marburg in 2009, 2010 and 2012 . The competition is named after Jim Thorpe , 1912 Olympic champion.
history
Since 1993, the competition, initially called the Visa Cup Meeting , has been held between the two strongest decathlon nations as a top-class international competition. It was founded by the then German national coach Claus Marek and the US head coach Harry Mara. The first edition took place in 1993 in Aachen . Only once, in 2004, was the competition canceled. The heptathletes have also been integrated into the cup since 2006. In 2007 the competition was given its current name.
The cup was held alternately in Germany and the USA until 2009. In 2008 the Cup took place in Manhattan in the US state of Kansas . In 2009 and 2010, the athletes competed against each other in the Georg Gaßmann Stadium in Marburg . The university town was awarded the contract for the realignment due to the large number of spectators and is under discussion as a permanent venue for the Thorpe Cup.
In the first 18 decathlon editions, the Americans won 13 times, Germany won five. Up to then each nation had won the women's heptathlon three times.
In addition to the competitors, non-competitive athletes also take part. In 2012, a week before the Olympic Games with Ashton Eaton , the favorite for gold in London, the German Olympians Rico Freimuth and Jan Felix Knobel competed in some competitions.
mode
In the decathlon, seven athletes from both countries compete against each other, five of them are included in the ranking. For the heptathletes there are five athletes per nation, of which the top three are rated.
Thorpe Cup 2009
Several thousand spectators saw the 16th Thorpe Cup in the Marburg Stadium on August 8th and 9th, 2009. The individual ranking of the decathlon competition was won by the American Tom Pappas , world champion in 2003, with 8569 points, which was a record for the cup. He was thus the outstanding athlete in the victory of the US Americans (39,462 points) over the German decathlon team (35,927 points). Second with 7892 points was Joe Dettmer , another American. Third overall and the best German was the 2008 Junior World Champion, Jan Felix Knobel , who scored 7758 points.
The individual winner in the heptathlon was the US American Liz Roehrig . With 5990 points she was just ahead of the German Christine Schulz (5974 points) and her teammate Claudia Rath (5941 points). In the team standings, the German women won by over 1000 points (17,680 versus 16,650 points).
