Decathlon

Decathlon is an athletic event combining 10 track and field events. Events are held over two consecutive days and the winners are determined by the combined performance in all events. Performance is judged on a points system in each event, not by the position achieved. The decathlon is contested by male athletes, while female athletes contest the Heptathlon.

Traditionally, the title of "World's Greatest Athlete" has been given to the man who wins the decathlon. This began when King Gustav V of Sweden told Jim Thorpe, "You, sir, are the World's Greatest Athlete" after Thorpe won the decathlon at the Olympics in Stockholm in 1912. The current holder of the "title" is Czech national Roman Šebrle, who has held the title five of the past seven years as well as the highest score ever.

The decathlon is a menu of athletic events, testing an individual’s speed, strength, skill, endurance, and personality. The word is of Greek origin (deka [ten] +athlon [contest]). The decathlon includes five events on each of two successive days. The first day schedules the 100-metre run, long jump, shot put, high jump, and 400 metres. It is a day of speedy movement, explosive power, and jumping ability. Day 2 consists of the 110-metre hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, and 1500 metres. The importance of this day is on technique and endurance.

Events

Day one:

• 100 m
• long jump
• Shot put
• high jump
• 400 m

Day two:

• 110 m hurdles
• discus throwing
• pole vault
• javelin throwing
• 1500 m

Origins

The event sprouted from the ancient game pentathlon. Pentathlon is a game that was played at the ancient Greek Olympics. Pentathlons involved five games – long jump, discus throw, javelin, sprint and a wrestling match. Introduced in Olympia during 708 BC, the game was extremely popular for many centuries. By the sixth century BC, pentathlons became part of religious games.

Gorgos, from Elis town near Olympia was a four-time pentathlon winner during the period. Another key player was Lampis, a young Spartan who was the first Olympic winner. Automedes was also a known player of the time. The last recorded game winner was Publius Asklepiades of Corinth in AD 241. Roman Emperor Theodosius I officially put an end to the game in AD 393 by closing down all the sanctuaries including Olympia.

From the mid 1700s various versions of the game emerged. The 1948 Olympics endorsed a new implication to the game. Seventeen-year-old Bob Mathias emerged as the then decathlon winner, banishing the myth that decathlon was a game for the old and the experienced. Mathias still remains the youngest decathlon sports champion in Olympic history.

Modern standardization

In 1964 the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) laid out new scoring tables and brought about some standardization in the game. The 1970s saw the game spreading to the Eastern European nations, mainly the Soviet Union, Poland and East Germany.

The first decathlon competition was held on a single day, October 15 1911, in Gothenburg, Sweden. This was technically not the first decathlon, but one of the first two, as Germany also held a decathlon on the very same day. The Germans contested their events in the same order but with a different scoring table. So, the first decathlon world-record holder was the winner of the first completed meet. Karl Hugo Wieslander, a Swede, and Karl Ritter von Halt, a German, were announced world-record holders.

The decathlon was added to the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm. After experience, the following order was chosen: 100 m run, long jump, shot put, high jump, and 400 m run on the first day; 110 m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, and 1500 m run on the 2nd day. The Swedes also developed a set of scoring tables, based on the 1908 Olympic records. After the 1912 Stockholm Games, the tables were updated to include many new Olympic records.

The 1912 Olympic decathlon has become legend because of the presence of Jim Thorpe. Jim had a terrific 1912 spring track season, winning as many as six events per meet. Thorpe made the U.S. Olympic team in four events: decathlon, pentathlon, high jump, and long jump. The Russian czar donated a Viking ship as a prize for the decathlon champion. Thorpe won the decathlon by almost 700 points over his closet opponent, Hugo Wieslander of Sweden. Because of the unexpected large number of entries, the decathlon was held over 3 days. The first day they held the 100 m run, long jump, and shot put. The second day consisted of the high jump, 400 m run, discus, and 110, hurdles. The third and final day consisted of the pole vault, javelin, and 1500 m run. Thorpe’s 8412 points converts to 6564 points on the current tables, still a very respectable score three quarters of a century later. Swedes: Hugo Wieslander, Charles Lomberg, and Gösta Holmér captured the next three spots.

Thorpe’s score was not beaten for another 15 years. In his absence, there was little decathlon activity for the remainder of the decade. Only in Sweden was the decathlon often contested. The Swedes managed to stay neutral during World War I, which forced the cancellation of the games of Berlin in 1916. Fascinatingly, decathlons were held as part of the Far Eastern Games in 1913, 1915, 1917, and 1919.

The average good decathlete competes at most three or four times a year, the less talented even fewer. Bill Toomey’s nine great efforts back in 1969 were very unusual. The Decathlon is the least common Olympic event.

The decathlete does not have to be amazing in any event to be a champion in the 10 events. But he must range from adequate in his weak events to good or better in the other skills. Because he must do well in the four runs and six field events, he has little opportunity to perfect any one event. His training is necessarily different as he strives to improve all techniques, gain strength without losing speed, and acquire the stamina to perform through a competition that lasts anywhere from 4 to 12 hours per day during the Olympics. As a reference point, a performance in the (non-decathlon) world record class would give somewhere between 1100 and 1400 points per event, totaling almost 12500 points for a full record-breaking decathlon. When compared to the 6-7000 points that a good decathlete would usually get, or the world record of slightly over 9000 points, this illustrates how much specialization must be sacrificed to become a good all-round athlete.

The decathlon is the only event in which it doesn’t matter if the athlete finishes first, second, or third in an event. The score is the thing, and for the most part decathletes compete against themselves, while watching their opponents. It is also the only event with an arbitrary scoring system and thus the only one in which personal performance and records can be broken as new scoring tables are adopted. Under the original scoring tables adopted in 1912, Akilles Järvinen of Finland finished second in both the 1928 and 1932 Olympics, but the new scoring system introduced in 1934 gave Jarvinen higher converted totals than both the men he lost to. World-record holder C.K. Yang lost 1032 points when his 1963 performance was converted late in 1964 to the new tables first used in the 1964 Olympics. His top rivals lost only 287 and 172 points when their bests were converted, and Yang dropped from the favorite to third on the pre-Games ranking, finishing a disappointing fifth.

The arbitrary nature of the scoring tables can work in the opposite direction as well. In 1984, at the Los Angeles Olympic Games, Great Britain’s Daley Thompson missed the world record by one point on then-used 1962/77 tables. The tables were changed a year later and Daley’s score in Los Angeles converted to a best-ever mark.

One hour decathlon

One hour decathlon is a special type of decathlon, in which the athletes have to start the last of ten events (1500 metres) within sixty minutes after the start of the first event. The world record holder is a Czech decathlete Robert Změlík, who achieved 7897 points at a meeting in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia in 1992.

World Records

POINTS	ATHLETE	NATION	DATE	PLACE
POINTS TABLE SINCE 1920
7485	Aleksander Klumberg-Kolmpere	EST	1920-07-05	Tallinn
7710	Harold Osborn	USA	1924-07-12	Paris
7820	Paavo Yrjölä	FIN	1926-07-18	Viipuri
7995	Paavo Yrjölä	FIN	1927-07-17	Helsinki
8053	Paavo Yrjölä	FIN	1928-08-04	Amsterdam
8255	Akilles Järvinen	FIN	1930-07-20	Viipuri
8462	James Bausch	USA	1932-08-06	Los Angeles
8790	Hans-Heinrich Sievert	GER	1934-07-08	Hamburg
POINTS TABLE SINCE 1936
7900	Glenn Morris	USA	1936-08-08	Berlin
8042	Bob Mathias	USA	1950-06-30	Tulare
POINTS TABLE SINCE 1952
7887	Bob Mathias	USA	1952-07-26	Helsinki
7985	Rafer Johnson	USA	1955-06-11	Kingsburg
8014	Vassily Kuznetsov	URS	1958-05-18	Krasnodar
8302	Rafer Johnson	USA	1958-07-28	Moscow
8357	Vassily Kuznetsov	URS	1959-05-17	Moscow
8683	Rafer Johnson	USA	1960-07-09	Eugene
POINTS TABLE SINCE 1962
8206	Yang Chuan-Kwang	TPE	1963-04-28	Walnut
8230	Russ Hodge	USA	1966-07-24	Los Angeles
8319	Kurt Bendlin	FRG	1967-05-14	Heidelberg
8417	Bill Toomey	USA	1969-12-11	Los Angeles
8454	Nikolay Avilov	URS	1972-09-08	Munich
8524	Bruce Jenner	USA	1975-08-10	Eugene
8538	Bruce Jenner	USA	1976-06-26	Eugene
8618	Bruce Jenner	USA	1976-07-30	Montréal
8622	Daley Thompson	GBR	1980-05-15	Götzis
8649	Guido Kratschmer	FRG	1980-06-14	Filderstadt-Bernhausen
8704	Daley Thompson	GBR	1982-05-23	Götzis
8723	Jürgen Hingsen	FRG	1982-08-15	Ulm
8743	Daley Thompson	GBR	1982-09-08	Athens
8779	Jürgen Hingsen	FRG	1983-06-06	Filderstadt-Bernhausen
8798	Jürgen Hingsen	FRG	1984-05-15	Mannheim
8798	Daley Thompson	GBR	1984-08-09	Los Angeles
POINTS TABLE SINCE 1985
8891	Dan O'Brien	USA	1992-09-05	Talence
8994	Tomáš Dvořák	CZE	1999-07-04	Prague
9026	Roman Šebrle	CZE	2001-05-27	Götzis
WOMEN'S WORLD RECORD
8366	Austra Skujytė	LTU	2005-04-15	Colombia

NOTE: Skujyte's marks total 6333 using the men's scoring tables

National records

• As of 2007-09-06

POINTS	NATION	ATHLETE	DATE	PLACE
9026	CZE	Roman Šebrle	2001-05-27	Götzis
8891	USA	Dan O'Brien	1992-09-05	Talence
8847	GBR	Daley Thompson	1984-08-09	Los Angeles
8832	GER	Jürgen Hingsen	1984-06-09	Mannheim
8815	EST	Erki Nool	2001-08-07	Edmonton
8735	BLR	Eduard Hämäläinen	1994-05-29	Götzis
8730	FIN	Eduard Hämäläinen	1997-08-06	Athens
8725	KAZ	Dmitriy Karpov	2004-08-24	Athens
8709	UKR	Aleksander Apaichev	1984-06-03	Neubrandenburg
8698	RUS	Grigori Degtyaryov	1984-06-22	Kiev
8644	JAM	Maurice Smith	2007-09-01	Osaka
8626	CAN	Mike Smith	1996-05-26	Götzis
8574	FRA	Christian Plaziat	1990-08-29	Split
8573	ISL	Jon Arnar Magnusson	1998-05-31	Götzis
8566	POL	Sebastian Chmara	1998-05-17	Murcia
8554	HUN	Attila Zsivóczky	2000-06-04	Götzis
8526	ESP	Francisco Javier Benet	1998-05-17	Murcia
8490	AUS	Jagan Hames	1998-09-18	Kuala Lumpur
8447	NED	Robert de Wit	1988-05-22	Eindhoven
8445	UZB	Ramil Ganiyev	1997-08-06	Athens
8437	LTU	Ryszard Malachowskis	1988-07-02	Staiki
8403	SWE	Henrik Dagård	1994-09-11	Talence
8359	NZL	Simon Poelman	1987-03-22	Christchurch
8334	SUI	Stephan Niklaus	1983-07-03	Lausanne
8320	AUT	Gernot Kellermayr	1993-05-30	Götzis
8291	ARG	Tito Steiner	1983-06-23	Provo
8290	CHN	Qi Haifeng	2005-05-29	Götzis
8288	MDA	Valeri Kachanov	1980-06-21	Moscow
8271	LAT	Janis Karlivans	2007-05-27	Götzis
8266	BRA	Pedro da Silva Filho	1987-04-23	Walnut
8257	CUB	Yordanis García	2007-09-01	Osaka
8213	POR	Mario Anibal Ramos	2001-07-01	Kaunas
8199	BUL	Atanas Andonov	1981-06-21	Sofia
8169	ITA	Beniamino Poserina	1996-10-06	Formia
8160	NOR	Benjamin Jensen	1999-08-01	Greve
8069	GRE	Prodromos Korkizoglou	2000-07-02	Ibach
8057	YUG	Saša Karan	1990-07-01	Ljubljana
8047	BEL	Hans van Alphen	2007-08-13	Bangkok
8023	TUN	Hamdi Dhouibi	2005-08-10	Helsinki
8009	TPE	Yang Chuan-Kwang	1963-04-28	Walnut
7995	JPN	Munehiro Kaneko	1993-05-14	Shanghai
7994	DEN	Lars Warming	1988-06-19	Götzis
7934	ALG	Ahmed Mahour Bacha	1985-07-09	Algiers
7882	IRL	Carlos O'Connell	1988-06-05	Emmitsburg
7846	TJK	Igor Sobolevski	1982-07-16	Leningrad
7834	ROM	Vasile Bogdan	1975-06-08	Paris
7824	KOR	Kim Kun-Woo	2006-05-26	Gongju
7802	CYP	Georgios Andreou	2000-08-12	Volos
7799	SVK	Peter Soldos	2001-06-10	Arles
7777	BAR	Victor Houston	1997-08-06	Athens
7757	TUR	Alper Kasapoğlu	1996-04-19	Azusa
7756	GEO	Juri Dyachkov	1968-06-16	Tbilisi
7734	VEN	Douglas Fernández	1983-08-27	Caracas
7730	QAT	Ahmad Hassan Moussa	2004-06-27	Ratingen
7704	PUR	Luiggy Llanos	2003-08-06	Santo Domingo
7698	SLO	Damjan Sitar	2006-05-28	Maribor
7674	RSA	Joepie Loots	1983-04-16	Bloemfontein
7667	IRI	Hadi Sepehrzad	2007-07-28	Amman
7659	CRO	Joško Vlašić	1983-06-25	Izmir
7632	LCA	Dominic Johnson	1998-03-27	Tucson
7614	MEX	Alejandro Cárdenas	1996-05-11	Medellín

Seasons best

• As of 2007-09-06

YEAR	POINTS	ATHLETE	PLACE
2007	8676	Roman Šebrle (CZE)	Talence
2006	8677	Bryan Clay (USA)	Götzis
2005	8732	Bryan Clay (USA)	Helsinki
2004	8893	Roman Šebrle (CZE)	Athens
2003	8807	Roman Šebrle (CZE)	Götzis
2002	8800	Roman Šebrle (CZE)	Götzis
2001	9026	Roman Šebrle (CZE)	Götzis
2000	8900	Tomáš Dvořák (CZE)	Götzis
1999	8994	Tomáš Dvořák (CZE)	Prague
1998	8755	Dan O'Brien (USA)	Uniondale
1997	8837	Tomáš Dvořák (CZE)	Athens
1996	8824	Dan O'Brien (USA)	Atlanta
1995	8695	Dan O'Brien (USA)	Göteborg
1994	8735	Eduard Hämäläinen (BLR)	Götzis
1993	8817	Dan O'Brien (USA)	Stuttgart
1992	8891	Dan O'Brien (USA)	Talence
1991	8812	Dan O'Brien (USA)	Tokyo
1990	8574	Christian Plaziat (FRA)	Split
1989	8549	Dave Johnson (USA)	Houston
1988	8512	Christian Plaziat (FRA)	Talence
1987	8680	Torsten Voss ( GDR)	Rome
1986	8811	Daley Thompson (GBR)	Stuttgart
1985	8559	Torsten Voss ( GDR)	Dresden
1984	8847	Daley Thompson (GBR)	Los Angeles
1983	8825	Jürgen Hingsen ( FRG)	Bernhausen
1982	8774	Daley Thompson (GBR)	Athens
1981	8334	Rainer Pottel ( GDR)	Birmingham
1980	8667	Guido Kratschmer ( FRG)	Bernhausen
1979	8476	Guido Kratschmer ( FRG)	Krefeld
1978	8493	Guido Kratschmer ( FRG)	Bernhausen
1977	8400	Aleksandr Grebenyuk (URS)	Riga
1976	8634	Bruce Jenner (USA)	Montreal
1975	8429	Bruce Jenner (USA)	Eugene
1974	8229	Ryszard Skowronek (POL)	Montreal
1973	8163	Lennart Hedmark (SWE)	Bonn
1972	8466	Nikolay Avilov (URS)	Munich

Other multiple event contests

• Biathlon
• Duathlon
• Triathlon
• Quadrathlon
• Pentathlon
• Modern pentathlon
• Heptathlon
• Octathlon (primarily a youth or junior event although logistical problems have seen senior octathlons contested, for example at the 2007 South Pacific Games)