This past weekend was an exciting one for track and field fans (and hopefully fans of human performance in general) as the world Decathlon record went down once again, broken by Kevin Mayer of France totaling 9126 points in the 10 event competition.
It’s always intriguing to me the nature of the “world’s greatest athlete”, or the title given to the decathlon (or heptathlon) champion, and how two very different athletes who have shared the record may stack up.
To this end, Ashton Eaton was the previous world record holder in the event, with 9045 points. In this short piece, I’ve compared the events and points of each competitor, as well as how their abilities, jumping, sprinting and throwing comprised their point totals. It has seemed like the European competitors have always had a much larger proportion of their totals coming from the throws, where the Americans have thrived on the sprints, and the jumping component is somewhere in the middle.
For those unfamiliar, Just Fly Performance Podcast guest #92 Jerome Simian of Synaptic Athletics is the strength coach for Kevin, so to get some insight into some of the methodology that helped prepare for this world record, be sure to give it a listen.
A chart comparing the event totals and point breakdowns is listed below.
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