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The Decathlon arises from the pentathlon, which were competitions held at the Olympics in the Ancient Greece. It consisted of five major disciplines: long Jump, discus throw, javelin throw, sprint and a wrestling match. After being included into the program of the ancient Olympics, the pentathlon was very popular for many centuries. In the late 1800’s, the event began to appear again especially in the US and evolved into a more solid form from time to time until it was first contested in the 1904 Olympics. Then in 1912, the official format as we know it currently, was contested for the first time. On the following you will see how the different disciplines are split up into two days and what their Benchmarks are in order to earn a perfect score (1000) for each discipline:
Day 1 Day 2
100 meters: 10.39s 110 meters Hurdles: 13.80s
Long Jump: 7.76m Discus throw: 56.17m
Shot Put: 18.40m Pole Vault: 5.29 meters
High Jump: 2.21m Javelin: 77.19 meters
400 meters: 46.17s 1500 meters: 3:53.79
The decathlon is also a traditional men’s event, whereas women also compete in decathlons but not in major international championships. The equivalent for women would be the Heptathlon which we will discover later in this article in detail.
Looking at records over the last 100 years, the US is probably the most successful nation out of all with a total of 14 gold medals. The first ever official world record in the decathlon was the Estonian athlete Alexander Klumberg in the year 1922 with a result of 6087 when looking at our scoring system. As a comparison, the current world record holder, Kevin Mayer (FRA), has scored 9126 points which makes him an incredible athlete combining strength, speed and agility.
Heptathlon
The heptathlon can be seen as the athletic all–round test for females, just as the decathlon for men. As you already can assume looking at the name, the event includes seven disciplines and is held outdoors while for men it only takes place indoors. At the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, women started to compete in a heptathlon which then got replaced by the heptathlon in 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Here you can see the included disciplines as well as their order and the requirements for a perfect score:
Day 1 Day 2
100 meters Hurdles: 13.85s Long Jump: 6.48m
High Jump: 1.82m Javelin Throw: 57.18m
Shot Put: 17.07m 800 meters: 2:07.63
200 meters: 23.80s
The first official Heptathlon world record for women was achieved in the year 1981 by Jane Fredericks from the US. She was able to get astonishing 6104 points and standings progressed rapidly over the next years. In 1986, Jackie Joyner-Kersee from the US broke the 7000 barrier by scoring 7148 points. Then in 1988, she was able to reach 7291 points and set a new world record that still remains unbeaten. She also won the 1988 and 1992 Games as well as two World Championships in 1987 and 1993.
Heptathlon
Heptathlon – Wikipedia
Decathlon – Wikipedia
Decathlon
