Jana Koščak made history at the Hypo-Meeting in Gotzis (27-28 May) when she scored 6293 points in the senior heptathlon, surpassing the tally of 5615 set by her sister Klara Koščak in May 2021.
Her score set a new Croatian senior national record and was also the highest score ever achieved by an u/18 in a senior heptathlon. This was also her first senior athletics debut made only nine days after her 17th birthday.
Koščak's outstanding performance led to her receiving the ‘Rookie of the Meeting’ award after finishing ninth.
What a total! 🥵
Only nine days after celebrating her 17th birthday, Jana Koscak 🇭🇷 scores 6293 points on her Götzis debut!
That’s the best ever score by an U18 in a senior heptathlon! ✨ pic.twitter.com/kMLhiWZM5V— European Athletics (@EuroAthletics) May 28, 2023
The heptathlon event consists of 7 events - 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m sprint, long jump, javelin and 800m run.
Koščak first caught eyes on the international stage last year, when she scored 6106 points at the 2022 European Athletics U18 Championships Heptathlon event in Jerusalem (July 2022). Despite nursing an elbow injury, which limited her to just one throw in the javelin (arguably her best event), she still went on to win by more than 300 points from Hungary's Sarolta Kriszt (5794 points) and Germany's Pia Messing (5690 points).
In January this year, she also cleared 1.90m in the high jump, breaking the Croatian indoor u/18 record. One month later, she set a new European youth best in the pentathlon, scoring 4232 at the Tallinn Indoor Meeting. Thereafter, she broke the girls' pentathlon u/18 record when she scored 4585 points at in Zagreb.
Koščak is definitely an upcoming star who seems well on her way to continue to break barriers in the future.
