It’s going to take 9000 points to win the Olympic decathlon.
Since Leo Neugebauer broke Jürgen Hingsen’s German decathlon record in June last year.
Since Pierce LePage scored within 100 points of 9000 at the World Championships in Budapest.
Among those who ponder such things, the working assumption has been that, to win gold in the Olympic decathlon in Paris this weekend, it will take 9000 points.
AN EXTRAORDINARY SPRING
Before we cleared April, a month in which we usually see a few tentative scores north of 8000, Neugebauer had scored 8708, and Ayden Owens-Delerme 8732.
Six weeks later Johannes Erm and Sander Skotheim were locked in a whirlwind at the European Championships in Rome that took Erm over 8700. And at the NCAA championships in June, Neugebauer extended his German record to 8961, close behind Tomas Dvorak on the southern edges of 9000 on the all-time lists.
So, even with the unfortunate withdrawal of Canada’s world champion LePage, the Olympic decathlon expectations have been set. And they are sky high.
Only four men in history have exceeded 9000 points in a decathlon, and – until a few hours before this was written – two of them were in the field for Paris. But neither was considered an outright favourite.
AN ODE TO KEVIN
As the world record holder, Kevin Mayer was a poster boy for these French Olympics. But his path north from Montpellier to Paris was cursed.
His attempts to qualify once, twice, thrice are well documented, racing across continents and enduring through seasons. Brisbane in December, San Diego in April, Rome in June. Fighting against the instinct to express himself 100%, testing the nerve of his support team. Three attempts at an opening pole vault height in Rome.
Mayer located the sweet spot between momentum and restraint to skid over the automatic Olympic decathlon qualification mark of 8460, with just 16 points to spare. But the recovery concertina had already been squeezed, his proprietary 12-month-recovery period between decathlons condensed into just two. Eight weeks from qualification to the biggest decathlon of Mayer’s life.
But another dramatic twist was to come. At the Paris Diamond League on 7 July, a “triathlon” of combined events was staged to showcase Mayer and a selection of other decathletes. During the hurdles discipline, Mayer stumbled and fell. A painful injury, but the anguish evident on his face had little to do with the physical rupture. Less than a month to go, and a torn hamstring was thrown into the melee of Kevin’s Olympic preparation. The prognosis was bad. And so, on the eve of the decathlon the news broke – it was over. There would be no return from the adversity, no Celine Dion moment for Kevin below the Olympic rings. Instead, tears tumbled into the Seine.
The last time we experienced la douleur exquise for Kevin, it led to the greatest revenge PB in history. Maybe, this is not quite the end.
ON THE EDGE OF 9000
For Damian Warner, the story since his Olympic decathlon victory in the Covid-hollowed Games of Tokyo has been one of consistency, tempered by frustration.
After scoring 8797 in his traditional opening competition in Götzis in May 2022, Warner’s bid for his first outdoor world title ended on the bends of the 400m in Hayward Field. He recovered in 2023, albeit relinquishing his hold on the Götzis title to LePage and conceding the world title to his teammate, but turning an 8619 decathlon in May into an 8804 for silver in August. In 2024, Warner returned to the top of the Götzis podium with 8678, and every chance that he can return to the hinterland of 9000 again in Paris.
But with LePage withdrawn, a window has opened. Through it climbs a host of young athletes with 8700, 8800 and 8900 scores to their names and the scent of gold in the air.
The favourite is Leo Neugebauer, the darling of the NCAAs. After a solid few years in Texas climbing through 8000 and into the 8400s with his contemporaries Kyle Garland (who misses out after injury at the US trials) and Ayden Owens-Delerme, Neugebauer felled Hingsen’s legendary German record in 2023.
However, as demonstrated in Budapest last year, turning an impressive NCAA score into a global medal-winning decathlon is not a foregone conclusion. Neugebauer’s impressive first day – including an 8m long jump and 17m shot – lulled naive commentary into hanging a gold medal around the young German’s neck. In the end he finished fifth with 8645.
But much has changed since that breakthrough performance in 2023, including the emergence of a much steadier Day 2. Neugebauer’s relative weak points are in his hurdles, his javelin and as yet modest 1500m. Leo has two unique decathlon quirks, his long jump-shot combination, and his discus-javelin ratio, where his javelin is often less than his field-leading discus.
It is, of course, quite ridiculous to be poking holes in an 8900-point decathlon performance. But the reason we find ourselves doing so is the multiple athletes who, with the withdrawal of Pierce LePage and Kevin Mayer, sense blood on the trail to gold.
Perhaps the biggest challenge comes from Ayden Owens-Delerme, Neugebauer’s sparring partner in the NCAA. Owens-Delerme is as intense as Neugebauer is easy-going, the Puerto Rican radiating internal expectation in contrast to the German’s outward relaxation. The two have contrasting strengths, Owens-Delerme sensational on the track – second only to Ashton Eaton in a decathlon 400m and leaving Niklas Kaul for dust in the 1500m – while Neugebauer shines in the field events.
Like Neugebauer, Owens-Delerme’s decathlon has matured in the past year, raising the floor on his traditionally weaker field events while continuing to push his strengths. Ayden has done all of this from a new post-college base in Puerto Rico, removing distractions and honing his craft. His 8732 in April at Mt SAC would have been considerably higher had a groin strain not limited his 1500m to 4;45, rather than his more typical sub 4:15.
A BACCHANALIAN FEAST OF EUROPEAN SCORES
If Neugebauer and Owens-Delerme are providing the NCAA axis for the decathlon – not forgetting US champion Heath Baldwin who forewent the NCAA decathlon competition to focus on the US trials – then there is a veritable Bacchanalian feast of European scores to further widen the Olympic decathlon field.
The European championships in Rome was a whirlwind of a competition between Markus Rooth of Norway, silver-medallist Sander Skotheim of Norway, and eventual champion Johannes Erm of Estonia.
Markus Rooth competes like a hurricane, generally acknowledged to be one of the best technical athletes in decathlon and bringing a unique combination of energy and discipline. At the half-way point in Rome he was scheduled to be 100 points ahead of his 8608 score from the European U23 championships in Espoo in 2023. Due to a small injury in the pole vault, he wasn’t able to finish and realise the score.
Usually leaning heavily on his throws, Rooth leaped 8m in the long jump in Rome, beating more accomplished horizontal jumpers like Skotheim and Erm to the milestone. So, although Rooth comes into the field with the 13th best decathlon PB, that mark camouflages what he has shown to be capable of scoring this year.
Sander Skotheim has an excellent championships record, already with a collection of international senior medals. But closer inspection reveals some interesting patterns.
In 2021 he finished second to Jente Hauttekeete at the European U20 championships in Tallinn, after scoring only the second U20 heptathlon in history over 6000 behind the Belgian in the indoor season.
Skotheim exceeded Martin Roe’s Norwegian record at Multistars in 2022, but finished second to Rooth who took the record higher.
In 2023 Skotheim finished second at the European Indoors to Kevin Mayer, and outdoors finished second to Markus Rooth at the European U23 championships in Espoo, both again exceeding the previous national record.
At the World Indoors in Glasgow this year, Skotheim finished second to Simon Ehammer in the heptathlon, and outdoors he finished second to Johannes Erm in the European championships decathlon (after beating him indoors in Glasgow).
Skotheim is far too young – still just 22 – for this pattern of second places to be framed as missing out, but it does tell us something about Skotheim’s likely appetite for an Olympic medal against his peers. He has been so close to a world record, so close to a national record (although now secured), so close to a gold medal, so many times.
Skotheim’s signature events are his long jump (just short of 8m), high jump (2.20m) and 1500m (4:16). His weak point in 2024 has been inconsistency in the pole vault – 5.30m at best, but only 4.60m when he scored 8635 in Rome.
Johannes Erm might fool one into thinking he is the most relaxed man in the field, but behind that nonchalance he is a fighter. That was clear when he lifted his indoor heptathlon performance to challenge Ehammer and Skotheim indoors, and when he pulled out pole vault, javelin and 1500m PBs in Rome to put himself in the best possible position to bring home an Estonian gold.
The current European champion is naturally more of a Day 1 athlete – as evidenced by the epic 2019 battle with Niklas Kaul in Gävle – but his weak spot is often the hurdles, typically the last opportunity for the sprinter-jumper athletes to construct a buffer before the more technical field events come into play. Erm has held his hurdles well this year – and can certainly hold his own in the subsequent technical events – but that will be a good checkpoint on his progress. For context, Erm’s performance in Rome was just over 50 points behind Erki Nool’s national record of 8815.
Such is the current quality of European decathlon that we have not yet even mentioned the Rome bronze medallist, Makenson Gletty, or the 2022 European and 2019 World Champion Niklas Kaul.
Niklas Kaul is the king of tactical decathlons, lurking in lower table obscurity on the first day, climbing into the top ten overnight, positioning himself during the discus and then unleashing his deadly javelin and 1500m as others begin to fade.
But the German has to contend with the bias of the points system towards the sprints and jumps, and against his strengths, the throws and 1500m.
Kaul’s lifetime best is 8691, scored in Doha with a 79m javelin. The third best score of his career (8547) was “only” good enough for fourth in Rome, although much the same score (8545) won him the European title in 2022. Kaul is certainly capable of getting well up into the 8700s, but he needs a sound progression of eight events to set up his final two events. Kaul’s javelin is rumoured to be returning to 2019 levels, and with Owens-Delerme to bring him some competition in the 1500m, it’s not impossible that we might see a return of the 2019 world champion to a global podium.
Makenson Gletty of France is the decathlete’s decathlete. He is perennially overlooked in favour of his more famous teammate, despite bringing passion and excellence to his signature events, the shot and hurdles. He is popular with his competitors – they paced him in pursuit of an Olympic qualification score in Talence in 2023 – and in 2024 he has demonstrated a new skill, nerves of steel when under pressure. In the past, Mak has lost out due to unfortunate NMs or ill-timed injuries. But when he was left standing in the blocks during the decathlon hurdles at the European Championships in Rome, he composed himself to rerun the race, and put himself back into contention. He went onto win bronze, scoring a lifetime best and Olympic qualifier of 8606 points.
We are still not done with the European decathletes who have scored over 8500 and are capable of getting up further into 8700s.
In 2023, Karel Tilga was the Estonian making the breakthrough, scoring over 8400 at both Multistars and Götzis before leading the trio of 8400+ Estonian performances in Budapest, where he finished fourth. Knee problems in 2024 have curtailed him from undertaking a full decathlon in the early season, but he added 40m to his shot PB in Ratingen.
Tilga is solid in the sprints and among the fastest over 1500m. He can jump long and high, and throw over 16m, 50m and 70m in the shot, discus and javelin respectively. His pole vault is close to 5m. He has one single weakness – his hurdles, where he languishes alongside Neugebauer and Lindon Victor with a best in the mid 14 seconds.
Janek Õiglane is perhaps the most fragile of the Estonians, but he is also the big championships performer. Behind every big performance from Õiglane – sixth in the World Championships in Doha, third at the European Championships in Munich, sixth in the World Championships in Budapest – there is a stressful six months of injury. But somehow, he always manages to deliver.
UNICORNS AND RAINBOWS
If the Estonians are spoiled for choice for their Olympic prospects, then the Americans can similarly boast a competitive team.
Zach Ziemek, the bronze medallist from Eugene in 2022 and – you know my mantra by now – the most underappreciated decathlete of our times, had a relatively straightforward run to second place at the US champs and onto another global decathlon championships.
We generally see Ziemek twice a year, once to qualify, and once to compete. That rhythm – which included a DNF in Budapest – means that ZZ was actually unranked this year. One of the whimsical features of the World Athletics rankings system is that an athlete can simultaneously be qualified for the Olympics through a high decathlon score, and unranked by the governing body in its public-facing list of top athletes. Schrodinger’s decathlete, if you will. Or the “Unicorn” score, as defined by my fellow rankings-sceptic, 2000 Olympic bronze medallist Chris Huffins.
Double Z has the record for the most points from the three jumps in a decathlon, 7.74m long jump, 2.14m high jump and 5.55m pole vault, achieved at the Olympic trials in 2021. Simon Ehammer is close behind, and it can only be a matter of time before Sander Skotheim starts knocking on the door for that achievement.
Harrison Williams consolidated his status in the decathlon elite in 2023, landing three scores well over 8400 at Mt SAC (8492), the US trials (8630) and in Budapest (8500). His approach has necessarily been more tentative this year, with a few injury challenges, but his third place and healthy score of 8384 at the US champs disguises a powerful learning experience. Williams had a disastrous high jump, clearing only 1.86m on Day 1. With others breathing down his neck, it would have been easy to resign himself to defeat. But he recovered, collecting a javelin PB on the way, to land the third qualifying position for Paris, traversing a rainbow of emotions on the way.
Heath Baldwin is one of two surprise emerging stars this season. Prior to 2024, he was consistent around the 8000 mark, solid but ultimately unremarkable among the rich depth of US college talent. The step up came at Mt SAC in April, where Baldwin scored an automatic Olympic qualifying score of 8470 behind Ayden Owens-Delerme. That disrupted the likely trio of auto-qualified US athletes, Double Z, Harrison Williams, and Kyle Garland. Even if Garland hadn’t – sadly – hurt himself in the pole vault at the US trials, Baldwin would have claimed his place impressively, improving his PB by a further 150 points to win the US title in 8625. Williams and Baldwin both enjoyed some individual events alongside the victorious US men’s team at the Thorpe Cup a few weeks ago in Wetzlar.
The other breakthrough came from the Netherlands’ Sven Roosen, consistently between 8000-8200 and colourful multiple medal-winning veteran of EU23 championships. Roosen was second behind Andreas Bechmann (and ahead of Markus Rooth) in Tallinn in 2021, and bronze behind Rooth and Skotheim in Espoo in 2023.
A little adrift of championship qualification, Roosen chose to prioritise his love of Götzis over a less prestigious meet – where a podium finish with generous rankings points would have been guaranteed – much to the frustration of his coach Ingmar Vos.
But the gamble paid off. Roosen had a sensational meeting in Götzis, elevating his lifetime best from 8157 to 8517, threatening Eelco Sintnicolaas’ Dutch record and finishing second to Olympic champion Warner. Still just 23, Roosen is rough around the edges in the vertical jumps, but his sprints are something special to watch – he floats, almost moonwalking down the home straight in the 100m and 400m.
Ken Mullings of the Bahamas parachuted into Glasgow in March as the unexpected world leader in heptathlon, with a score of 6340, ultimately equalled by Johannes Erm’s bronze medal performance. His work over the last year under the tutelage of Petros Kyprianou in Illinois has been transformational, and he will surely improve his ten-event PB of 8176, scored in Götzis this year.
A special mention to his compatriot, the Bahamian decathlon national record holder Kendrick Thompson. Kendrick’s voyage to Paris ended when he was seriously injured in a fishing accident earlier this year. He’s on the mend, but is missed, and we look forward to welcoming him back in 2025.
There’s an Olympic debut for the South American champion, Jose Fernando Ferreira Santana of Brazil. He has worked hard, a long way from home, to collect rankings points on the circuit in an attempt to rebalance the bias against non-European athletes. With a PB of 8064 from January this year, he can hold his own against others around him.
LIVING ON THE EDGE
Also from the Netherlands, Rik Taam almost missed out on qualification, but the early withdrawal of World Indoor champion Simon Ehammer of Switzerland to focus on the long jump freed up a place and allowed Taam to move up the rankings and into qualification. He was on the edges too in 2021 when teammate Pieter Braun withdrew too late for Taam, next on the list, to be promoted. Happily, the Olympic story has another chapter for Taam in 2024.
Jorge Ureña had a close call in qualification too, towards the bottom of the rankings, but with the additional burden of an arbitrary domestic qualification mark to satisfy Spanish selection criteria. And to be honest, as late as Ratingen in mid-June, it was looking very bleak for Jorge, with awkward individual events, and a satisfactory decathlon seeming a long way off. But, as he so often does, Ureña pulled off the clutch performance he needed at the Spanish nationals, scoring 8102 and putting himself back in the game. The mark was still a little short of the Spanish standard, but the Federation decided not to be f***ing stupid, and put him in the team.
Dan Golubovic of Australia was also perilously close to falling off the edge of qualification, but the Commonwealth silver medallist made the cut. He had an excellent year in 2023, over 8300 and delivering consistency over 8000. The highlight of 2024 for him thus far has been a silver medal at the Oceania championships, scoring 8002 in challenging conditions in Fiji.
Till Steinforth was the 22nd and last man in the field, a stroke of luck arising from another’s misfortune. As for the Americans, Germany had more qualified athletes than places and Manuel Eitel was the top choice – if not the only choice – for the third spot behind Neugebauer and Kaul. However, a devastatingly ill-timed bout of Covid ruined Eitel’s Olympic debut, and the third place defaulted to Steinforth, who had improved his PB to 8287 a few weeks earlier in Ratingen.
No such luck for Jente Hauttekeete of Belgium and Vilem Strasky of Czechia, though, who could have been the 23rd and 24th athletes. Hauttekeete should have been in position to be drawn up following LePage’s withdrawal. But he was denied a place by the IOC’s erratic approach to universality places across disciplines, as they desperately tried to reduce a self-inflicted overspend on their athlete quota by grabbing back unexpected places from across disciplines. But hey, we have extra repechage rounds of track events that nobody asked for.
THE MEDALLISTS
We started with medallists from the last two global championships, so let’s end with medallists too. Olympic bronze medallist Ash Moloney of Australia and World bronze medallist Lindon Victor of Grenada have had inconsistent experiences since their career-defining achievements.
Moloney scored 8649 to win bronze in Tokyo, the decathlon in which Warner exceeded 9000 points. Moloney’s feat was impressive, but it also demonstrates just how much the event has moved on in three years. In this field, 8600 would be a somewhat pedestrian championships score, and 8800+ is a reasonable expectation of the requirement to reach the Olympic podium in 2024.
This week World Athletics announced formally that the automatic qualification standard for the Tokyo World championships would be increased to 8550. This is probably the first time we have witnessed a hike in standard and thought “Yup, that’s about right.”
Moloney scored just under 8200 to win the Oceania championships in June, and a few weeks previously scored over 8300 in Götzis. Both are promising stepping stones back to the level he will require to reach to challenge for medals.
Lindon Victor had a hellish year before his triumph in Budapest, struggling with misdiagnosed health problems as late as Götzis in May 2023, and a credible challenge at the world championships seemed unlikely. But he turned it round – adding 200 points to his 8550 PB from Talence in 2022 and exceeding 8700 on the banks of the Danube. Lindon has lost his prime position as Mr Decathlon Discus though – Leo Neugebauer has pinched that accolade. But Victor is one of the most popular decathletes to ever do ten events, and that counts for a lot over two days, even with his immense Grenadian talent.
RESOURCES
If you’re reading this article, you’ll likely already have a range of tools ready to deploy over the next few days but let me share a few recommendations.
Running commentary on the decathlon will be on my Decathletes of Europe Twitter/X account @DecathletesofEU, and between sessions I’ll also be analysing the action at the World Athletics Virtual Coaches Club.
If you enjoy tracking forecasts, then Ten and Seven Events is the go-to resource for the graphs and charts of your dreams. And there’s a new kid on the block too – Paris Multis have been supporting US athletes to track performances at trials and World Championships and have now branched out into a website.
As always, all the stats you need can be found at Decathlon 2000.
SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE…OF 9000?
So, will Damian successfully defend his title, or will Leo finally turn his NCAA spectacles into a global title?
Which Estonian will prevail – Erm, Tilga or Õiglane?
Will we see Niklas Kaul stay on pace to pose a threat in the waning moments of the Stade de France?
Can Markus Rooth complete his unfinished business from Rome, or will Sander Skotheim hang onto the number one Norwegian spot?
Can Lindon or Ash step up further to repeat or improve their bronze hardware?
Will we find out what Ayden would have scored had he pushed the 1500m in April?
Is Sven our Steve Nedoroscik, calmly strolling in to shake things up?
Will we be adding more 9000 athletes to the legendary names of Mayer, Eaton, Sebrle and Warner?
Side quest – can Simon Ehammer beat the specialists and bring back gold in the long jump?
And, perhaps most poignantly, will the home favourite Makenson Gletty finally get his place in the sun, and the recognition he deserves, at his home Olympics?
See you on the other side.
WORDS: Gabby Pieraccini
