Sat. Feb 15th, 2025
decathlon and heptathlon rankings

In Olympic year, the route to Paris can take many different paths.

There are those who have qualified automatically with an Olympic standard, and who do not need to go through rigorous selection competitions. For them, they can focus entirely on preparation for the Olympic competition in August.

There are those who have qualified automatically with an Olympic standard, but who need to fight for a place on their national team.

And there are those who have not achieved an Olympic standard, but who are within sight of qualification through the World Athletics rankings. They now need to fight to hold onto that provisional qualification place or fight to climb the rankings into qualification.

All of these routes come to a crossroads these next two weekends, before the qualification period ends on 30 June. And the most significant of those competitions take place this weekend in Germany, at the Ratingen Mehrkampf meeting, and in the USA at the US Olympic trials.

Here is a month-by-month analysis of how the Olympic decathlon field started to take shape, and what is at stake this weekend in Ratingen and Eugene.

DECATHLON – JANUARY 2024

In January 2024, the rankings were influenced primarily by the expiration of scores from July 2022, including the World Championships in Eugene.

Most significantly, the gold and bronze medallists Kevin Mayer of France and Zach Ziemek of the USA dropped from 6th and 13th place respectively to the ranks of the unranked. This was less significant for Ziemek than it was for Mayer, because Ziemek already had an outright Olympic qualification of 8508 from the US trials in 2023 whereas Mayer – until this month – did not.

This also reminds us that rankings do not give a true picture of the shape of the sport, since athletes qualified for the Olympics may not be ranked, or ranked well below those who have lower scores.

Other consequences of the expiry of the 2022 World Championships scores were Ayden Owens-Delerme of Puerto Rico dropping from 14th to 15th (more on him shortly), Estonia’s Maicel Uibo 19th to 21st and Australia’s Cedric Dubler 29th to 33rd.

Germany’s Malik Diakite went from 60th to unranked as his 2022 Thorpe Cup score expired. After a promising 8000+ return in Arona a few months later in May, Diakite sadly announced that return from his 20-month absence had been, again, thwarted by injury.

However, there were some strong performances in January which laid the path for moves to come.

Top of the list was Ken Mullings from the Bahamas who leaped from 49th place to 26th with his world heptathlon lead of 6340, a score which remained top of the world lists until the World Championships in Glasgow in March. Tucked behind Mullings was his training partner Aiden Ouimet, with an indoor breakthrough score of 5985, which brought him into the top 100 rankings in 93rd place. Peyton Bair also crept into the top 100, thanks to an athlete above him dropping down, with two 7800 scores from 2023.

Ash Moloney of Australia arrived back in the rankings at 73rd place with a solid performance of 5807 in Clermont Ferrand. Tim Nowak of Germany started a climb, in this instance from 48th to 44th with his first ever 6000+ heptathlon score at the German nationals. And Great Britain’s Jack Turner started to move up too, from 67th to 64th, adding a 6000-point score (which qualified him for the World Indoors, although he did not take the place) to his 8000+ score from 2023.

DECATHLON – FEBRUARY 2024

In decathlon, scores from the 2022 Commonwealth Games expired, affecting Dan Golubovic and Cedric Dubler of Australia.

The impact on Dan was minimal, dropping just one place from 18th to 19th. However, Cedric dropped 19 places from 34th to 53rd. Both had 8000+ scores in reserve to replace their expired scores – Golubovic 8141 from Budapest and Dubler 8009 from 2023 Götzis, so why the big difference in position?

Although Golubovic has a better average decathlon score, the significant difference comes down to placing points.

  • Dan’s 8301 from 6th place in Götzis in 2023 gave him 1173+50=1223
  • Cedric’s 8334 from 1st place at the Glynis Nunn meet in 2023 gave him 1178+10=1188

And their secondary scores:

  • Dan’s 8141 from 12th at the 2023 WCs gave him 1148+65=1213
  • Cedric’s 8009 from 14th in 2023 Götzis gave him 1128+0=1128

So, one athlete with 8301/8141 can be ranked 19th and another with 8334/8009 can be ranked 53rd.

The improvements in rankings positions in February came from Tallinn (Vilem Strasky of Czechia moving from 50th to 37th with 5981) and Nationals (Sven Jansons 103rd to 69th with 5953 at Dutch champs, and Robin Bodart 83rd to 60th with 5953 at Belgian champs). Grant Levesque of the USA also moved from 88th to 63rd with 6068 at the Big 12 championships.

DECATHLON – MARCH 2024

The World Indoors in Glasgow had the biggest influence in rankings during March.

Gold medallist Simon Ehammer of Switzerland moved from 13th to 6th in rankings after his world lead of 6418. Silver medallist Sander Skotheim of Norway moved from 11th to 9th with 6407, and bronze medallist Johannes Erm of Estonia from 12th to 11th with 6340, matching Ken Mullings’ early world lead score.

Here, the role of placing points in skewing rankings comes into sharp relief. After the world indoors, the rankings were:

  • 6th place, Ehammer, with scores of 6418 and 8468
  • 9th place, Skotheim, with scores of 6407 and 8590
  • 11th place, Erm, with scores of 6340 and 8484

Meanwhile, behind them, Kyle Garland is only in 13th place, with far superior scores of 6639 and 8630, both from NCAA champs – hardly poor-quality fields.

Returning to Glasgow, Mullings’ score of 6242 in fourth gave him more points than his previous best of 6340, and he jumped 11 rankings places from 25th to 14th. Vilem Strasky climbed from 36th to 26th with his first 6000+ score. The World Indoors shows us that high placing points and small fields can have a huge impact on rankings.

Elsewhere, Heath Baldwin of the USA jumped from 39th to 23rd after his 6238 for second place at the NCAAs, Aiden Ouimet moved from 92nd to 81st after his 5997 for fourth at the NCAAs, and Fredriech Pretorious of South Africa moved from 77th to 63rd after his 7550 decathlon at the African Games.

Scores from Talence and other late summer meets of 2022 expired, causing some athletes to drop in rankings. Lindon Victor of Grenada had a small bump down from third to fifth with his Talence 2022 victory no longer in play. Likewise, loss of Talence scores cause Estonia’s Risto Lillemets to drop from 21st to 32nd, and Sweden’s Marcus Nilsson from 27th to 42. The USA’s Steven Bastien was previously ranked 41st but is now unranked.

Sven Janson’s brief return to the rankings ended after his August 2022 decathlon score subsequently expired. Germany’s Nils Laserich and Nico Beckers also dropped, Laserich 52 to 65 and Beckers 74 to 93. In more scores that don’t make sense, Beckers’ expired decathlon score (7759 to place 3rd at German nationals, with 45 placing points) was lower than the one that replaced it (7787 to finish 10th at Ratingen, but with 0 placing points).

At the end of the indoor season, the rankings looked as follows:

March decathlon rankings

DECATHLON – APRIL 2024

Onto April and the substantive start of the outdoor season, where rankings positions would become even more important.

The three most significant events were the Australian nationals, Mt SAC in California and Multistars in Italy.

At the Australian Nationals, Ash Moloney might only have scored 7884, but that gave him a significant leg up from his previous rankings position following Clermont Ferrand in January. He moved from 73rd to 51st.

Mt SAC is categorised as a “B” meet in the World Athletics Calendar, a classification which appears to have been generated by an intoxicated raccoon let loose with a spreadsheet.

In 2023 Harrison Williams won the Mt SAC decathlon with an Olympic qualifying score of 8492, and three other men over 8000. In 2023 Talence, a GL meet, had only two men over 8000. In 2024 Multistars, a category A meet, had only one man over 8000.

In 2024, Mt SAC was won by Ayden Owens-Delerme in 8732. Second was Heath Baldwin 8470, third Devon Williams 8342, fourth Jack Flood 8032, fifth Austin West 8024 and the top ten were all over 7750. Category B, my arse.

The measly Mt SAC placing points mean that Ayden only improved by one ranking place – one – from 15th to 14th, despite adding 450 points to his previous best ranking score, an 8281/6518 combination to an 8732/6518 combination. Bear in mind that Ehammer – ranked sixth – had an 8468/6418 combination at the time of being ranked sixth. Luckily, the poor rankings do not affect Owens-Delerme since he has an outright Olympic standard, but they do matter for those with sub 8460 scores clustered around the edge of qualification.

For context, Mt SAC has the same ranking classification as Hexham, the meeting in the north-east of England on 29-30th June. For Mt SAC, some big scores were suppressed by under-ranking. Conversely, some lower scores could be boosted in Hexham, and there are multiple athletes gathering to have a last chance attempt at Olympic qualification next weekend.

Baldwin did improve his ranking from 23rd to 17th, Devon from 45th to 24th, Flood from 94th to 59th, Ouimet 80th to 75th and Edgar Campre of Portugal 121st to 64th with a big improvement to 7975.

At Multistars, Jente Hauttekeete of Belgium collected a victory, another 8000+ score, and an improvement from 39th to 24th. Risto Lillemets was second and compensated for loss of his Talence 2022 score by moving back up from 33rd to 28th, and Teo Bastien – just missing 8000 – finished third and moved from 71st to 46th.

Scores from the South American Games of October 2022 expired, causing Andy Preciado of Ecuador to exit out of the rankings from 58th place, and Felipe dos Santos of Brazil to drop from 83rd to 131st.

DECATHLON – MAY 2024

May is Götzis month, where the big winner was the Netherlands’ Sven Roosen. Roosen juggled his decathlon PB to turn 8157 into 8517, secure the Olympic qualifying standard and move from 31st place to 17th place in the rankings.

Ash Moloney improved again, this time to 8367 which took him from 53rd place to 25th place. Without an automatic qualifying score, and on the edges of rankings qualification, that was not yet good enough, and he would need to do more.

Tim Nowak had a great competition in Götzis, improving his lifetime best to 8282 and moving from 42nd to 31st. Nils Laserich had his breakthrough competition, with a huge PB of 8146 which took him from 71st to 48th. And Sven Jansons bounced back into the rankings, his score of 7850 in 16th enough to bring him back in at 55th place.

A week earlier, Jeff Tesselaar of the Netherlands broke 8000 points for the first time finishing second in Arona, and that brought him into – at the time – 55th place from outside the top 100.

Andy Preciado also returned from the unranked, winning the Ibero-American champs in 7913 and re-entering at 52nd. Angelos-Tzanis Andreoglou of Greece won the Balkan champs in 7926 and moved up from 84th place to 59th. And Zsombor Galpal of Hungary scored 7985 at the Hungarian champs and improved from 152nd to 65th place in the rankings.

At the end of May, this is what the rankings looked like.

May decathlon rankings

DECATHLON – JUNE 2024, SO FAR

In June we saw significant changes to the ranking arising primarily from the two continental championships – Oceania and European – and the NCAAs.

First, Oceania. Ash Moloney took the title in a modest decathlon score of 8182 but the GL points leveraged him from 25th to 16th place in the rankings, a much safer place for someone without an automatic Olympic standard. Dan Golubovic remained in 22nd place – he would have climbed a place had Moloney not moved in front of him – but he did overtake Rik Taam of the Netherlands.

As the 2022 Oceania Championships scores expired, Alec Diamond of Australia dropped from 63rd place to 79th and Max Attwell of New Zealand dropped from 60th to 104th.

Meanwhile in Rome, Johannes Erm won a glorious European championships in 8764. He received the same placing points as Moloney – even though the two competitions were wildly different in depth and won by scores almost 600 points apart – and Erm moved from 11th place to sixth. Silver medallist Sander Skotheim moved from ninth to seventh with his 8635. Both men found their World Indoor Championships results continuing to feature in their two ranking scores.

Makenson Gletty moved from 15th to 11th place with his 8606 for bronze, although that score was deemed by the points system to be of poorer quality than his 8443 to win Talence. 75 points for bronze in Rome, 110 points for first in Talence.

Dario Dester of Italy moved from 37th to 33rd with his 6th place, Thomas Van der Plaetsen of Belgium from 40th to 37th, and Jeff Tesselaar from 57th to 41st.

As for the Oceania Championships, a further edition of the European Championships means that the scores from the previous championships in 2022 expired.

That dropped Simon Ehammer from 6th to 9th, Niklas Kaul from 12th to 14th, and rendered Janek Õiglane (previously 8th), Maicel Uibo (24th), Kai Kazmirek (29th), Baptiste Thiery (45th) and Marcus Nilsson (46th) unranked. Õiglane does, of course, have the Olympic qualifying standard from Budapest last year.

Kevin Mayer, as always, made life difficult for himself by squeaking the Olympic qualification standard by a mere 16 points, but his 8476 in Rome was also enough to bring him into the rankings in 15th place.

In the USA, Leo Neugebauer’s marvellous NCAA score of 8961 did not improve his ranking, and he remained in third place. Although Neugebauer’s ranking score improved – the difference between his 8961 and his 8836 last year – his most “valuable” score remains his 8645 from fifth place in Budapest last year.

Other notable improvements arising from the NCAAs were Edgar Campre improving from 70th to 49th place with his 8042 in third, Jack Turner improving from 66th place to 56th with 7962 in fourth, and Peyton Bair improving from 105th to 57th with 8131 in second.

Here’s what the rankings look like as of 18 June.

June decathlon rankings

RATINGEN AND US TRIALS

So, as we go into Ratingen and the US trials, the Road to Paris reads as follows:

18 athletes have qualified by automatic standard.

  • Germany: Leo Neugebauer, Niklas Kaul
  • Canada: Pierce LePage, Damian Warner
  • Estonia: Johannes Erm, Karel Tilga, Janek Õiglane
  • Grenada: Lindon Victor
  • Puerto Rico: Ayden Owens-Delerme
  • Norway: Sander Skotheim, Markus Rooth
  • USA: Kyle Garland, Harrison Williams, Zach Ziemek, Heath Baldwin
  • France: Makenson Gletty, Kevin Mayer
  • Netherlands: Sven Roosen

Of these, the US will need to determine which three of Garland, Harrison Williams, Double Z and Baldwin gets the slots at their trials this weekend.

The next 7 athletes qualified by rankings are:

  • Switzerland: Simon Ehammer (ranked 9th)
  • Australia: Ash Moloney (ranked 16th)
  • Germany: Manuel Eitel (ranked 17th)
  • Bahamas: Ken Mullings (ranked 20th)
  • Spain: Jorge Ureña (ranked 21st)
  • Australia: Dan Golubovic (ranked 22nd)
  • Netherlands: Rik Taam (ranked 23rd)

The reason the rankings (above) do not tally with the position in the “Road to Paris” is because rankings are influenced so heavily by placing scores, including indoors. This can mean that athletes with Olympic standards can be ranked well below those without the Olympic standard and may not be ranked at all (in the case of Ziemek and Õiglane). If seven athletes were to perform well enough over the next two weeks, they could in theory knock out the ninth ranked decathlete in the world, Simon Ehammer, not just those in the bottom quarter. Crazy, huh?

So, who is competing this weekend who could disrupt the emerging shape of the field?

For Ratingen, the three men in the margins are all here to try and put themselves out of danger: Jorge Ureña, Dan Golubovic and Rik Taam. Cedric Dubler is – pending his hamstring holding together – also ready to compete but he has a much bigger task in hand, to improve from 51st place.

Vilem Strasky is ranked 31st but after we remove the excess Germans, Estonians and Americans, he is actually only three places away from Taam. The competition in Ratingen is coming a little soon after the Europeans in Rome, but Strasky competes very well when he’s on a positive run and given his trajectory this year has every chance of elevating himself into Olympic qualification. That seems less likely for his training partner Ondrej Kopecky, who is languishing down in 47th place in the rankings, 39th in the Road to Paris.

For Germany, Tim Nowak and Felix Wolter are in 29th and 30th ranking position respectively, on the same ranking score. Ratingen’s Category A points could benefit them considerably in a home competition and take them into contention for selection against Manuel Eitel, whose best has been just over 8200 of late. Marcel Meyer is not too far behind either in 35th, and Till Steinforth returns to this side of the Atlantic to see if he can replicate his NCAA success – he sits in 39th place. Kai Kazmirek is also competing in Ratingen this weekend, but it is hard to see him delivering a score that could allow him to leapfrog the other contenders and join Neugebauer and Kaul in the team for Paris.

Karel Tilga was, until Rome, the No.1 Estonian decathlete. He has no need to prove himself before Paris, and while he would likely not be troubled over a full ten events, he is only participating in individual disciplines, saving his energy to cheer on partner Zheng Ninali in the heptathlon.

For the USA, Devon Williams and Austin West are poised in 26th and 27th rankings position respectively. Good scores could elevate them beyond Golubovic and Taam and into qualification by rankings, but they would need to make the top three in the trials and exceed the Olympic qualification standard of 8460 if they wanted a chance of being chosen over the four men who already have the standard. However, that’s entirely possible for Williams, who has already proved himself to be in lifetime best form this year and over 8300.

Among the four qualified athletes, Baldwin has the momentum from his NCAA season, and skipped the NCAA decathlon. But Harrison Williams and Kyle Garland are experienced in navigating unpredictable seasons, where injury interrupts the path to big scores. And, of course, when it comes to pulling a rabbit from the hat when it matters, no-one can touch Double Z.

The full entry lists and results for Ratingen can be found here.

The full entry lists and results for the US trials can be found here.

decathlon and heptathlon rankings