THE DECATHLON can be confusing enough to the uninitiated without the changes in the scoring tables which have been necessitated over the years. Therefore I have used conversions based on the current 1984 tables in this article.
My first ever decathlon was at the 1952 Olympics, when the 1948 champion, the great Bob Mathias, became the first decathlete to retain an Olympic title. His score was 7887 points, a world record, which now corresponds to 7592, and he was way ahead of any opposition.
The only other man to successfully defend his title was the outstanding Daley Thompson. He won in Moscow in 1980 and then Los Angeles in 1984, where he set a new record of 8798, which was then acknowledged as the first mark under the new tables, re-scored at 8847.
Since 1990 the indoor heptathlon for men has become popular and I was pleased to be at the World Indoor Championships at Istanbul in 2012 when American Ashton Eaton set the current record of 6645. Four months later he set a new decathlon mark of 9039 too.
This story is from the January 16, 2020 edition of Athletics Weekly.
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This story is from the January 16, 2020 edition of Athletics Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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