Combined king Eaton left gasping in title defence

Sopot, Poland: US combined events master Ashton Eaton was left gasping for air after cruelly failing to better his own world record when retaining his world indoor heptathlon title on Saturday.

Eaton, whose Canadian wife Brianne Thiesen Eaton won silver in the women`s pentathlon on Friday, was overnight leader after the first four events (60m - 6.66sec, long jump - 7.78m, shot put - 14.88m, high jump - 2.06m). On Saturday, he timed 7.64sec in the 60m hurdles before nailing 5.20m in the pole vault, leaving himself the goal of running 2:33.54 or faster in the final event, the strength-sapping 1,000m. Leading from the front, Eaton pushed himself all the way, roared on by a capacity crowd at the Ergo Arena in the Polish Baltic Sea resort of Sopot. But he left himself needing to run a final 200 metres in 28 seconds, something that fell 1.18sec beyond an athlete who is also the current world and Olympic decathlon champion and world record holder. "I`m happy, but I wish I could have got the world record," said Eaton, who missed out on what could have been a $50,000 bonus for a new world record. "I wasn`t alone on the track with all these great supporters." Eaton eventually crossed the line in 2:34.72 for a total of 6,632 points in the indoor seven-discipline event, 13 short of the world record of 6,645 he set when winning the indoor title in Istanbul in 2010. Belarus` Andrei Krauchanka claimed silver with 6,303pts and Belgian Thomas van der Plaetsen took bronze (6,259).