Kevin Mayer

In 2018, he broke Ashton Eaton's world record, establishing a new mark of 9126 points in Talence, France.

In the run up to the 2017 European Athletics Indoor Championships, Mayer's first combined events competition of the year was an indoor track and field triathlon (60m hurdles, shot put, long jump) at the National Indoor Meeting of Paris on 8 February. Mayer didn't receive a score in the 60m hurdles, but finished first in the other two events against the other two remaining participants, Bastien Auzeil and Gaël Querin. Nevertheless, he finished last (out of three), with 1652 points. His first heptathlon was at the French Elite Indoor Championships in Bordeaux (organized by the French Athletics Federation) on 18–19 February. While Mayer didn't get marks in the long jump, he finished in first place in the other five events in participated in. He decided not to participate in the final 1,000 metres and therefore finished the heptathlon without a score.

At the 2017 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade on 4–5 March, his first international competition of the year, Mayer won the gold medal in the men's heptathlon with a new European record (6479 points), beating Jorge Ureña (silver, 6227 points) and Adam Helcelet (bronze, 6110 points). He achieved three indoor personal bests (in the long jump, 60m hurdles, and the pole vault) and finished third or best in six out of seven events (except the 1000m, where he finished fourth) and established personal indoor records in five (all but the shot put and the 1000m). This score is also the second-best personal record score for a men's indoor heptathlon (behind Ashton Eaton's world record of 6645 points); Mayer beat the previous European indoor record, set by Roman Šebrle at the 2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Budapest, by 41 points.

At the 2017 World Championships in Athletics in London, Mayer completed his first decathlon of the year and won his first World Championships gold medal with a world-leading score of 8768 points, ahead of Germans Rico Freimuth (silver, 8564 points) and Kai Kazmirek (bronze, 8488 points); this was also France's first international gold medal in the decathlon. Despite not coming first in any specific discipline, Mayer achieved new personal bests in the 100 metres (10.70s, 929 points), 400 metres (48.28s, 897 points), and the 110 metres hurdles (13.75, 1007 points). A setback in the pole vault – where he cleared his only mark at 5.10m only at the third and last try – 30 cm below his personal record – prevented him from breaking his personal record.

On 6 March 2016, Mayer announced his withdrawal from the 2016 World Indoor Championships because of a heel injury sustained during the hurdles race at the French Indoor Athletics Championships held at the end of February in Aubière.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Mayer earned a silver medal with a new personal best of 8834 points, finishing behind only two-time gold medallist Ashton Eaton, who was the world record holder at the time. Highlights of his campaign include equalling or improving personal outdoor bests in four events (100 m, shot put, 400 m, pole vault) and performing seasonal bests in three others (long jump, high jump, 1500 m); he was also the best decathlete in two disciplines (the shot put, with 15.76 m and 836 points; and the pole vault, with 5.40 m and 1035 points, sharing first place with Thomas van der Plaetsen) and lead the standings at the end of the first day of the competition (i.e. after 5 out of 10 events). Furthermore, this performance ranks as the sixth-best personal best score in the men's decathlon, and showed a marked improvement in form for Mayer, bettering his former personal best of 8521 points (set during the aforementioned silver medal run at the 2014 European Athletics Championships) by 313 points and the French national record by 260 points.

On 12 August 2015, Mayer announced his withdrawal from the 2015 World Championships because of a hamstring injury sustained in the end of July 2015.

He won a silver medal in the heptathlon at the 2013 European Athletics Indoor Championships with a new personal best of 6297 points. At the 2013 European Cup Combined Events he topped the podium and set personal bests in the 100 metres (11.04 sec), long jump (7.63 m), shot put (14.95 m) and the discus throw (44.89 m).

Mayer started practicing athletics at the sports association EA Tain-Tournon close to his hometown; after the club's merger with two other Drôme-based athletics associations in 2013, Mayer continued representing it through the new institution, EA Rhône Vercors 26-07. He trains at the CREPS Montpellier, a training center for high-performance athletes, since 2008; ever since moving to Montpellier, he has been coached by Bertrand Valcin. He studied for a fr:Diplôme universitaire de technologie en mesures physiques (a technological degree in physical measurements, including metrology and instrumentation) at the University of Montpellier-Sète.

He competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics, finishing 15th.

He won the octathlon gold medal at the 2009 World Youth Championships and the decathlon gold medal at the 2010 World Junior Championships.

Kevin Mayer (French: [kevin majɛʁ] , [mejɛʁ] or [majœr] , born 10 February 1992) is a French athlete. He is the world champion (2017), Olympic silver medalist (2016 Rio de Janeiro) and world record holder in the Decathlon.

Mayer was born on 10 February 1992 in Argenteuil, a commune in the northwest suburbs of Paris, to André and Carole Mayer. His paternal family and German surname have their origin in the northeastern region of Lorraine, where his father grew up; some of his relatives still live in the Moselle department next to the border with Germany. He has three brothers: Thibault, Thomas and Sébastien; the family was raised in La Roche-de-Glun, a small town by the Rhône river in the southeast of the country (Drôme department), where his parents still live.