This 25th edition of the annual Multistars meeting will see 22 male decathletes and 24 female heptathletes compete in Grosseto’s Stadio Carlo Zecchini, starting tomorrow.

Tour winners are decided by totalling the number of points that athletes score in each of the three competitions during the season, with points determined by the World Athletics combined events scoring tables.

Dutchman Pieter Braun leads the men's field, in which six of his competitors also have a personal best over the 8,000-point barrier. 

Braun himself has 8,342 points as a personal best, which was set at the meeting in Götzis in Austria in 2018.

However, he has not competed since 2019 and had to withdraw from Tokyo 2020.

Chasing Braun is France’s Axel Hubert, who won the national decathlon title in 2020, while Estonia will be represented by the successful trio of Kristjan Rosenberg, Risto Lillemets and Taavi Tsernjavski.

Rosenberg was last year’s Estonian champion and will look to improve on his runner-up Multistars finish in 2019.

Lillemets was the 2020 national champion while Tsernjavski has claimed several Estonian titles.

Sander Skotheim of Norway, who was last year’s European under-20 silver medallist, will make his senior decathlon debut in Grosseto this weekend.

Italy’s Dario Dester will be looking for a return to form on home soil after a disappointing 10th-place finish at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade earlier this year.

The women’s heptathlon field is led by Swiss Geraldine Ruckstuhl.

Ruckstuhl, who is known for her javelin ability, competed in Grosetto back when the competition was last held there in 2017.

In that meeting, she came second and set a Swiss record of 6,357 points. 

Like Braun, Ruckstuhl missed out on Tokyo 2020 due to injury and will be looking to make a strong start in 2022.

Annik Kälin will be joining Ruckstuhl on the Swiss team after winning bronze at the 2019 European Under-20 Championships.

Spanish heptathlete Claudia Conte, who shot to prominence after winning the European under-23 silver medal in Tallinn last year, has the second-best personal best of athletes set to compete this weekend.

Joining Ruckstuhl, Kälin and Conte are four other heptathletes with a score of over 6,000 points under their belts.

Puerto Rico’s Alysbeth Felix Boyer, Sofia Ifantidou of Greece, Poland’s Paulina Ligarska and Myke van de Wiel of The Netherlands are all due to compete.

The combined decathlon event features the 100 metres, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400m, 110m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1500m events. 

The heptathlon will feature the 200m, 800m, high jump, shot put, 100m hurdles, pole vault and javelin.