Consisting of 10 track and field events spread out over two days, contestants from all over the world voluntarily compete and see who really is the greatest athlete in the world.
Names like Bruce Jenner, Bob Mathias, Rafer Johnson and Dan O’Brein dominated the competition for decades. Apparently if you can win gold in this, you can sure as heck “keep up” with the Kardashians.
The latest to join this illustrious group is fellow American Ashton Eaton, winner of gold a few weeks ago in London. Eaton won in a landslide by 198 points over fellow American Trey Hardee.
You already know that. And you probably already know this is single-handedly the most difficult Olympic competition.
The reason this competition is the most grueling and insane is because in a span of 48 hours a mere human attempts to run four races (100m, 400m, 1500m, 110m hurdles), long jump, high jump, throw a 16 pound rock 50 feet over his head, throw the discus, pole vault and throw the javelin. It is a sport of the Greek gods. These guys play water polo on their days off.
The sport was originally the pentathlon (five events) and was founded by the Greeks around 708 B.C. A Spartan by the awesome name of Lampis was the first Olympic winner of the competition. The most celebrated pentathlon winner, though, was a Greek named Gorgos, who won four Olympic pentathlons.
Jim Thorpe, the most famous modern decathlete to sprint, run, hurdle, vertically and horizontally jump and throw better than any human in the world, was also the first winner of the modern decathlon.
Another aspect that separates this event from all others is the training that goes into it. You cannot just train and focus on one specific skill; you have to spread your time between 10 and master each.
According to //decathlon200.com//, there are many different things a decathlete must do in order to be in top physical shape to even dream about competing at a high level.
A sample week for your average decathlete is as follows:
• Monday: hurdles, discus, pole vault
• Tuesday: three miles, javelin, high jump, weight training
• Wednesday: shot put, sprint drills, medicine ball, gymnastic circuit
• Thursday: pole vault, discus, 5×600 meter repeats
• Friday: long jump, speed/hurdles, plyometrics
• Saturday: weight training, spring drills
• Sunday: 10×200 meters repeats
I get worn out playing FIFA.
And please do not go look at these guys times or scores and tell me Usain Bolt is a better athlete or superior because he runs a faster 100m than Ashton Eaton. I bet Bolt could not run that fast if he spent 10 percent of his time trying to jump off a stick over a pole 20 feet in the air.
Not to say Bolt is not great– he is, but what these decathletes do is special. They are a different breed of athlete. These guys take the impossible and make it look easy, or at least doable.
Scoring for the decathlon is different than what you might imagine. Each event is graded individually. For example, in the 100m, you get 1,000 points if the runner’s time is under 10.395 seconds, regardless of position. This allows each competitor to focus solely on what he is doing in this mind-numbingly awful event.
I cannot blame track and field athletes for sticking to just one competition. The decathlon requires more time, energy and work ethic than any other.
Not everyone can do it; just ask Kim Kardashian.
