The decathlon is an athletic event consisting of ten track and field Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area. The throwing and jumping events generally take place within the events. The word decathlon is of Greek origin (from δέκα deka [ten] and αθλος athlos [contest]). Events are held over two consecutive days and the winners are determined by the combined performance in all. Performance is judged on a points system in each event, not by the position achieved.^[1] The decathlon is contested mainly by male athletes, while female athletes contest the heptathlon A heptathlon is a track and field athletics combined events contest made up of seven events. The name derives from the Greek hepta and athlon (contest). A competitor in a heptathlon is referred to as a heptathlete.

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 Gustaf V (born 16 June 1858 – died 29 October 1950) was King of Sweden from 1907 until his death. He was the eldest son of King Oscar II of Sweden and Sophia of Nassau, a half-sister of Adolphe I, Grand Duke of Luxembourg. Dying at age 92, he holds the record of being the oldest monarch of Sweden and the second-longest reigning monarch of Sweden told Jim Thorpe Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe (Sac and Fox : Wa-Tho-Huk) (May 28, 1888 – March 28, 1953) was a Native American athlete. Considered one of the most versatile athletes in modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, played American football at the collegiate and professional levels, and also played, "You, sir, are the world's greatest athlete" after Thorpe won the decathlon at the Stockholm Olympics The 1912 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the V Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1912 in Stockholm, Sweden. For the first time, competitors in the Games came from all five continents symbolized in the Olympic rings. Also for the first time since 1896, all athletic events were held within a in 1912.^[2] The current holder of the title is American ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language Bryan Clay Bryan Ezra Tsumoru Clay is an American decathlete. He is the reigning Olympic champion and was also World champion in 2005, the gold medal winner of the event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, were a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008.[a] A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 302 events in 28 sports, one event more than was on the schedule of the 2004, who took the title from Athens Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team officials from 201 countries. There were 301 medal Czech champion Roman Šebrle Roman Šebrle (born 26 November 1974 in Lanškroun, Czechoslovakia) is an athlete from the Czech Republic. Originally a high jumper, he competes in decathlon and heptathlon for team TJ Dukla Praha and is a world record holder in the decathlon. In 2001 in Götzis he became the first decathlete ever to achieve over 9,000 points, setting the record.

Events

The modern event is a set combination of athletic disciplines, testing an individual's strength, speed, stamina, endurance, and perseverance; it includes five events on each of two successive days. The emphasis of the first day is on speed, explosive power, and jumping ability; the second emphasizes technique and endurance.^{[citation needed]}

Day 1

• 100 meters 100 m is the shortest outdoor sprint race distance in athletics. The reigning 100 m Olympic champion is often named "the fastest man/woman in the world". The 200 m record had often been at a faster average speed than the 100 m record
• Long Jump Competitors run down a runway and jump as far as they can from behind a foul line (commonly referred to as the "board", and usually defined by the trailing edge of a takeoff board embedded flush with the runway surface, or a painted mark on the runway) into a pit filled with finely ground gravel or sand. The distance traveled by a jumper
• Shot Put The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" a heavy metal ball (called the shot) as far as possible. It is common to use the term "shot put" to refer to both the shot itself and to the throwing motion
• High Jump The high jump is a track and field athletics event in which competitors must jump over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without the aid of any devices. It has been contested since the Olympic Games of ancient Greece. Over the centuries since, competitors have introduced increasingly more effective techniques to arrive at the current
• 400 meters

Day 2

• 110 meter hurdles
• Discus The discus throw is an event in track and field athletics competition, in which an athlete throws a heavy disc — called a discus — in an attempt to mark a farther distance than his or her competitors. It is an ancient sport, as evidenced by the 5th century BC Myron statue, Discobolus. Although not part of the modern pentathlon, it was one of
• Pole Vault Pole vaulting is an athletic field event in which a person uses a long, flexible pole as an aid to leap over a bar. Pole jumping competitions were known to the ancient Greeks, as well as the Cretans and Celts. It has been a full medal event at the Olympic Games since 1896 for men and since 2000 for women
• Javelin The javelin throw is a track and field athletics throwing event where the object to be thrown is the javelin, a spear approximately 2.5 metres in length. Javelin is an event of both the men's decathlon and the women's heptathlon.The javelin thrower gains momentum by running up to a predetermined area
• 1500 meters

Origins

The event developed from the ancient pentathlon A pentathlon is a contest featuring five different events. The name is derived from Greek: combining the words pente and -athlon (competition) (Greek: πένταθλον). The first pentathlon was documented in Ancient Greece and was part of the Ancient Olympic Games. Five events were contested over one day for the Ancient Olympic pentathlon,. Pentathlon competitions were held at the ancient Greek Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian Olympics The Olympic Games are a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Games are currently held every two years in even-numbered years, with Summer and Winter Olympic Games alternating, although they occur every four years within their respective seasonal. Pentathlons involved five disciplines – long jump, discus throw, javelin throw, 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 had become part of religious games.^[3]

Gorgos, from Elis Elis, or Eleia is an ancient district, that corresponds with the modern Ilia Prefecture. It is in southern Greece on the Peloponnesos peninsula, bounded on the north by Achaea, east by Arcadia, south by Messenia, and west by the Ionian Sea, a town near Olympia Olympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. Both games were held every Olympiad (i.e. every four years), the Olympic Games dating back possibly further than 776 BC. In 394 AD ( after exactly 1170 years ), was a four-time pentathlon winner during the period. Another key player was Lampis, a young Spartan Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military land- 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 The Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office: Latin titles such as imperator (from which English emperor ultimately derives), augustus, caesar and princeps were all associated with it. In practice, the emperor was supreme ruler of Rome and supreme commander of the Theodosius I Flavius Theodosius , also called Theodosius I and Theodosius the Great (Greek: Θεοδόσιος Α΄ and Θεοδόσιος ο Μέγας), was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Reuniting the eastern and western portions of the empire, Theodosius was the last emperor of both the Eastern and Western Roman Empire. After his death, the two parts split 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 competition emerged. The 1948 Olympics The 1948 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in London, United Kingdom. After a 12 year hiatus because of World War II, these were the first Summer Olympics since the 1936 Games in Berlin. The 1940 Games had been scheduled for Tokyo, and then Helsinki; the 1944 endorsed a new implication to the game^{[clarification needed]}. Seventeen-year-old Bob Mathias Robert Bruce "Bob" Mathias was an American decathlete, two-time Olympic gold medalist, actor and United States Congressman representing the state of California emerged as the then decathlon winner, banishing the myth that decathlon was a game for the old and the experienced.^{[citation needed]} Mathias still remains the youngest decathlon sports champion in Olympic history.

Modern standardization

In 1964 the International Amateur Athletic Federation The International Association of Athletics Federations is the international governing body for the sport of athletics. It was founded in 1912 during a war, at its first congress in Stockholm, Sweden by representatives from 17 national athletics federations as the International Amateur Athletics Federation. Since October 1993 it has been (IAAF; now the International Association of Athletics Federations) laid out new scoring tables and brought about some standardization in the sport. The 1970s saw the game spreading to the Eastern European nations, mainly the Soviet Union, Poland and East Germany.

The Amateur Athletic Union held "all around events" from the 1880s.^[3] One was held at the 1904 Olympic Games.^[3]

The first decathlon competition was held in just one single day, October 15, 1911, in Gothenburg Gothenburg (Swedish: Göteborg; pronounced [jœteˈbɔrj] ) is the second-largest city in Sweden (after Stockholm) and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the southwest coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 508,714, with 510,491 in the urban area and total of 920,283 inhabitants in the metropolitan area, Sweden Sweden (pronounced /ˈswiːdən/ SWEE-dən, Swedish: Sverige [ˈsvær.jə]), officially the Kingdom of Sweden (Swedish: Konungariket Sverige (help·info)), is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and water borders with Denmark, Germany and. 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 to the one in Sweden. 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, although neither was ratified as a world record; that would have to wait until 1922 1922 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar, when Aleksander Klumberg-Kolmpere of Estonia Estonia /ɛsˈtoʊniə/ (Estonian: Eesti), officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik), is a country in the Baltic Region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and to the east by the Russian Federation (338.6 km). The territory of was declared the first official record-holder for a performance in 1920 1920 was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display 1920) of the Gregorian calendar.

The decathlon was added to the 1912 Olympic Games The 1912 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the V Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1912 in Stockholm, Sweden. For the first time, competitors in the Games came from all five continents symbolized in the Olympic rings. Also for the first time since 1896, all athletic events were held within a in Stockholm Stockholm (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈstɔkːɔlm] ) is the capital and the largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the Riksdag (parliament), and the official residence of the Swedish monarch as well as the prime minister. Since 1980, the monarch has resided at Drottningholm Palace outside of Stockholm and uses^[4]. 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 Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe (Sac and Fox : Wa-Tho-Huk) (May 28, 1888 – March 28, 1953) was a Native American athlete. Considered one of the most versatile athletes in modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, played American football at the collegiate and professional levels, and also played. Thorpe 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 closest 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 m 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 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 Olympic event least commonly seen in non-Olympic meets.

The decathlete does not have to be amazing in all events to be a champion in the sport itself. 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. A decathlete trying to improve performance in one specific event is likely to deteriorate in another, because the physical demands of the various events are conflicting. 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 over 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 one of the few events with an arbitrary scoring system The scoring tables for the decathlon have undergone continual evolution since their inception about a century ago, with several changes to both the character of the equations and the indices on which the equations are based 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 Yang Chuan-kwang, or C.K. Yang (10 July 1933 in Taitung, Taiwan – January 27, 2007 in California, United States, at the age of 73), was an Olympic decathlete from Republic of China 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 The scoring tables for the decathlon have undergone continual evolution since their inception about a century ago, with several changes to both the character of the equations and the indices on which the equations are based can work in the opposite direction as well. In 1984, at the Los Angeles Olympic Games The 1984 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Los Angeles, California, United States in 1984. Los Angeles was selected as the host of the Games on May 18, 1978 on the 80th IOC session at Athens, Greece, without a vote, because it was the only city that submitted a bid, 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 Thompson’s score in Los Angeles converted to a best-ever mark.

Traditionally, all decathletes who finished the event do a round of honour together after the competition.

Points system

The 2001 IAAF points tables use the following formulae:^[5]

• Points = INT(A*(B-P)^C) for track events
• Points = INT(A*(P-B)^C) for field events

A, B and C are parameters that vary by discipline, as shown in the table below, while P is the performance by the athlete, measured in seconds (running), metres (throwing), or centimetres (jumping).^[5]

The decathlon tables should not be confused with the scoring tables compiled by Bojidar Spiriev, to allow comparison of the relative quality of performances by athletes in different events. On those tables, for example, a decathlon score of 9006 points equates to 1265 "comparison points", the same number as a triple jump of 18.00 m.^[6]

Benchmarks

Split evenly between the events, the following table shows the benchmark levels needed to earn 1000, 900, 800, and 700 points in each sport.

The total decathlon score for all world records World records in athletics are ratified by the International Association of Athletics Federations. Records are kept for all events contested at the Olympic Games and some others. Unofficial records for some other events are kept by track and field statisticians. The only non-metric distance for which official records are kept is the mile run in the respective events would be 12,545. The total decathlon score for all the best performances achieved during decathlons is 10,485.

Women's decathlon

At major championships, the women's equivalent of the decathlon is the seven-event heptathlon; prior to 1980 it was the five-event pentathlon.^[7] However, in 2001 the IAAF approved scoring tables for women's decathlon; the current world record holder is Austra Skujytė of Lithuania.^[8] Women's disciplines differ from men's in the same way as for standalone events: the shot, discus and javelin weigh less, and the sprint hurdles uses lower hurdles over 100 m rather than 110 m. The points tables used are the same as for the heptathlon in the shared events. The schedule of events differs from the men's decathlon, with the field events switched between day one and day two; this is to avoid scheduling conflicts when men's and women's decathlon competitions take place simultaneously.^[9]

Day 1

• 100 metres
• Discus
• Pole vault
• Javelin
• 400 metres

Day 2

• 100 metre hurdles
• Long jump
• Shot put
• High jump
• 1500 metres

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 m) 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.^[10]

World records

The first world record in the men's decathlon was recognized by the International Association of Athletics Federations in 1922.^[11]

As of June 21, 2009, 35 world records have been ratified by the IAAF in the event.^[11] The first score in the following table indicates the score using the tables in use at the time, the second score is based on tables currently in use.

The first world record in the women's decathlon was recognized by the International Association of Athletics Federations in 2004.^[13]

As of June 21, 2009, 2 world records have been ratified by the IAAF in the event.^[13]

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

National records

• As of September 2, 2009.

Season's best

See also

• List of Olympic decathlon medalists
• DecaNation

Other multiple event contests

• Biathlon
• Duathlon
• Triathlon
• Warsaw Winter Triathlon (speed skating, cycling, running)
• 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)
• Tetradecathlon or double heptathlon
• Icosathlon or double decathlon
• Chess-boxing
• Nordic combined
• Alpine Super-combination

References

• "IAAF Scoring Tables for Combined Events". IAAF. April 2004. http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/Competitions/TechnicalArea/ScoringTables_CE_744.pdf. Retrieved 2009-05-09.

1. ^ "Decathlon". Encarta. 2008. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761574361/decathlon.html. Retrieved 2008-08-06.
2. ^ World's Greatest Athlete
3. ^ ^{a b c} IAAF Scoring Tables for Combined Events, p.7
4. ^ "Decathlon". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.. 2008. http://britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/154929/decathlon. Retrieved 2008-08-06.
5. ^ ^{a b} IAAF Scoring Tables for Combined Events, p.24
6. ^ IAAF Scoring Tables of Athletics - Outdoor - 2008 Edition p.154
7. ^ IAAF Scoring Tables for Combined Events, p.9
8. ^ "Decathlon Records". IAAF. http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/records/inout=o/discType=5/disc=DEC/detail.html. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
9. ^ IAAF Scoring Tables for Combined Events, p.10
10. ^ "Decathlon Records". DECA - The Decathlon Association. http://www.decathlonusa.org/records.html. Retrieved 2007-10-21.
11. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak} "12th IAAF World Championships In Athletics: IAAF Statistics Handbook. Berlin 2009." (pdf). Monte Carlo: IAAF Media & Public Relations Department. 2009. pp. Pages 546, 559–60. http://www.iaaf.org/mm/document/competitions/competition/05/15/63/20090706014834_httppostedfile_p345-688_11303.pdf. Retrieved August 12, 2009.
12. ^ The IAAF record progression lists lists this date as 1984-06-05 but their all-time list says 1983.[1]
13. ^ ^{a b c d} "12th IAAF World Championships In Athletics: IAAF Statistics Handbook. Berlin 2009." (pdf). Monte Carlo: IAAF Media & Public Relations Department. 2009. pp. Pages 546, 649. http://www.iaaf.org/mm/document/competitions/competition/05/15/63/20090706014834_httppostedfile_p345-688_11303.pdf. Retrieved August 12, 2009.

External links

• Decathlon points calculator Warning ! Seems to contain Trojan:JS/Gamburl.E according to Microsoft Security Essentials
• Team Decathlon website

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