FAIR DECATHLON MODEL

PART VI - DAY ONE

Visitors, Ceilings, and the People Behind the Residuals

100 m  |  Long jump  |  Shot put  |  High jump  |  400 m

Principal finding

Rafał Snoch

From residual lines to actual athletes

Part V followed the lower decathlon through leave-one-event-out residuals. Its Day One chart was comparatively calm, but calm did not mean identical. The five lines moved in different directions, and a whole-model statistic could not explain who created those movements.

Part VI changes the unit of attention. Instead of asking only how far an event lies from the model centre, it asks who occupies each part of the scoring scale. Which athletes carry one event far above the rest of their profile? How weak can an event become inside a respectable decathlon? Where do the typical totals change sharply, and where do the floors become sparse or empty?

The unified master contains 27,741 complete, audited competition records. Every Day One mark is scored with the frozen FDM-40N function, truncated to an integer and assigned to one of eleven 100-point floors from 1000+ down to 0-99. The full recalculated official total of the same record is then summarized inside that floor. The counting unit is a competition record rather than a unique athlete, so repeated appearances can reveal a durable profile rather than a single unusual day.

These roles must not be confused. A visitor is vivid because he is unusual; the median tells us whether the floor itself is unusual. A ceiling example asks the reverse question. Occupancy prevents a dramatic minimum from being mistaken for a population law.

The lower-level coverage of the unified master is broad rather than geographically uniform. It contains complete, verifiable senior-specification decathlons found in the examined sources, not every athlete who attempted a decathlon. Athletes who failed to record ten valid performances are absent. Empty floors therefore describe the verified completed population in the master, not mathematical impossibility.

Readers are strongly encouraged to keep the Part VI annex open while reading this article. The article and the annex were designed to be used together: the article explains the patterns and introduces the athletes behind them, while the annex provides the full 100-point cohort tables needed to see the complete context. Reading the article without consulting the annex will give only a partial picture.

1. 100 metres

Speed arrives before the rest of the profile

Jalen Cadet reaches the 900-999 floor with 10.60 seconds, 912 FDM-40N points and a complete total of 6,035 OFF. This is not his only visit: one year earlier he ran 10.45 inside a 6,240-point decathlon. The speed is durable even when the complete profile remains far below the typical resident of the floor, whose median is 8,024 OFF.

The next floor contains an even deeper visitor. Hermann Schulz runs 10.96, receives 807 FDM points and completes only 4,770 OFF. The median total in 800-899 is 7,532. His sprint therefore stands 2,762 points below the typical complete profile around it.

The middle of the population is orderly until the 500-point landing. Median OFF falls from 6,877 in 600-699 to 5,846 in 500-599, then to 4,588 in 400-499. That step is the largest adjacent fall in the 100 m table: 1,258 points.

The basement remains occupied, but only lightly. Forty-four records reach 100-199 and eight reach 0-99. Thomas Vilding occupies the deepest complete total with 16.04 seconds, 34 FDM points and 1,314 OFF. Natural speed may arrive before broad decathlon development; at the opposite end, functional sprinting increasingly becomes part of the entry fee for completing a stronger profile.

2. Long jump

The quiet corridor

The long jump receives visitors, but they arrive from shallower depths. Lilian Sarrat jumps 7.42 metres, earns 835 FDM points and finishes with 6,207 OFF. The first total below 5,000 appears one floor lower, where Dragos Alexandru Silvestru reaches 6.91 metres and 708 points inside a 4,815-point decathlon.

The reverse cases are just as useful. Takato Kitagawa completes 6,521 OFF despite a 5.01-metre jump worth only 309 FDM points. Maarten Gijsen reaches 5,431 OFF with 4.28 metres and 190 points. A respectable complete decathlon can therefore carry a very weak long jump, but only to a point.

All eleven floors are occupied. The largest median fall occurs between 500-599 and 400-499, from 6,223 to 5,052 OFF. Even so, the distribution remains comparatively orderly, without a dramatic break in occupancy or a sudden change in the typical resident. The long jump is not featureless; it is simply the quietest neighbour on Day One.

3. Shot put

A powerful visitor and a staircase that ends

Romain Heinrich is the clearest Day One throwing visitor. His 16.41 metres are worth 941 FDM-40N points, but the complete decathlon reaches only 5,112 OFF. The median total on the same 900-999 floor is 8,126. Heinrich stands 3,014 points below the typical resident.

His profile explains the gap without requiring any mystery. The shot is exceptional, while the remaining nine events keep the complete total far below the throwing performance. The profile is uneven, but the 16.41 metres are real and fully documented.

Pavel Krejca provides stronger evidence than a single headline. Across seven complete records he throws from 13.66 to 14.84 metres while his totals remain between 5,737 and 6,439 OFF. The exact floor changes, but the identity persists: the shot repeatedly lives above the rest of the profile.

The population then changes sharply. Median OFF falls from 6,198 in 500-599 to 4,698 in 400-499, a 1,500-point step. The 300-399 floor still contains 724 records and 200-299 contains 59. Then the staircase stops.

The lowest observed shot-put score in the master is 205 FDM points, produced by 4.84 metres. No verified complete record reaches either of the two floors below. This does not prove that such a performance cannot exist. It establishes that the completed senior-specification population in the present master does not descend smoothly to zero.

4. High jump

The Polish balcony and the nearly empty basement

Konrad Owczarek remains the most dramatic Day One visitor. He clears 2.20 metres, receives 988 FDM-40N points and completes the decathlon with only 4,883 OFF. The median complete total on the 900-999 floor is 7,763, placing Owczarek 2,880 points below its typical resident.

Several Polish records follow on the neighbouring floor. Tomasz Krol clears 2.04 metres at 5,078 OFF, Bartosz Krocz 2.08 at 5,631, Bartlomiej Perucki 2.06 at 5,754 and Karol Hoffmann 2.04 at 5,967. This is a colourful delegation, not evidence of a national training law. Its value is narrower and safer: very strong high jumping can exist inside surprisingly incomplete decathlon profiles.

At the absolute top sits Derek Drouin with 2.28 metres, 1,068 FDM points and 7,150 OFF. He is a boundary case rather than an ordinary visitor: a world-class high-jump specialist using the complete decathlon in competition. His presence helps define the edge of the observed population, but not its typical shape.

The reverse direction is also important. Alejandro Cardenas completes 7,183 OFF despite clearing only 1.63 metres, worth 480 FDM points. Pedro Antonio Rodriguez reaches 6,843 OFF with 1.51 metres and 389 points. A developed decathlete can therefore carry a deep high-jump weakness before the total finally collapses.

Median OFF falls from 5,907 in 500-599 to 4,567 in 400-499. Below that landing, occupancy thins rapidly: 721 records in 300-399, 112 in 200-299, six in 100-199 and none in 0-99. The six lowest residents range from Thomas Vilding at 1.10 metres to Antoine Janvre at 1.20, yet the same raw height can sit inside very different complete totals.

5. 400 metres

Fast visitors and slow survivors

Davide Petrella becomes the strict visitor on the 800-899 floor. He runs 49.35 seconds, earns 805 FDM-40N points and completes the decathlon with 4,548 OFF. Lukas Sebik runs faster, recording 49.14 for 818 FDM points, yet his complete total is only 46 points higher at 4,594 OFF. The floor median is 7,584, placing Petrella 3,036 points below the typical resident, while Sebik falls only ten points short of a 3,000-point gap.

The next floor brings the Czech group into clearer view. Tomas Majer runs 50.63 inside a 4,046-point decathlon. Josef Nepomucky, Michal Broda, Vojtech Kudrnac and Petr Vich add further 50-51 second performances inside totals below 5,000. The cluster creates a good headline, but the evidence remains individual rather than national.

Petr Sarapatka is more valuable than one extreme. In three complete decathlons he runs 50.35, 50.72 and 50.42 seconds while his totals remain between 5,264 and 5,657 OFF. Repetition turns a curious mark into a recognisable sporting profile.

The slow side of the table produces the reverse story. Marek Lukas reaches 6,526 OFF despite 61.48 seconds. Adam Formanek records 5,918 OFF with 65.93. Joel Soler runs 69.86, receives only 77 FDM points and still completes 4,924 OFF. The 0-99 floor contains 68 records - far more than the corresponding basements in shot put or high jump.

The median sequence again breaks at the same landing, from 6,108 in 500-599 to 5,034 in 400-499. Unlike the shot put, however, the population continues all the way down. The 400 metres permits fast visitors at one end and surprisingly strong slow survivors at the other.

The Day One report

A shared landing near 500 points

The strongest common pattern is not a nationality or a single visitor. In all five Day One events, the largest adjacent decline in median complete total occurs between the 500-599 and 400-499 FDM floors. The exact size differs, but the location is identical.

This does not prove that 500 FDM points are a universal biological threshold. The bands are defined separately in each event, and the lower-level coverage of the unified master is not a representative census of all decathletes. It does show that the observed completed population changes most sharply at a remarkably similar nominal level across Day One.

Five different basements

Below that shared landing, the events cease to look alike. The long jump remains occupied on every floor. The 100 metres reaches 0-99 with only eight records. The shot put ends completely below 200-299. The high jump leaves six residents in 100-199 and none below. The 400 metres carries 68 records into 0-99 and still allows a 4,924-point decathlon to survive there.

The high-floor visitors also differ in meaning. Cadet and Schulz show natural speed arriving before broad development. Heinrich and Krejca show throwing identities. Owczarek turns one event into a tower above the other nine. Petrella, Majer and Sarapatka show that one-lap ability can be both spectacular and repeatable. The long jump provides useful exceptions without dominating the narrative.

A residual is a signal, not a diagnosis

Part V measured where the event trajectories moved. Part VI shows why those movements cannot automatically be labelled scoring errors. A residual may contain a misplaced curve, but it may also contain a specialist, a beginner, a durable imbalance, a technical boundary or a strong decathlete carrying one disastrous event.

Min OFF, Max OFF, Median OFF and N therefore answer different questions. The visitor tells a story. The ceiling tests survival. The resident describes the floor. Occupancy tells us whether the floor is a population or a curiosity. None is sufficient alone.

References and data

[1] Snoch, R. Fair Decathlon Model, Part V: How Far Down Does FDM Continue to Balance the Ten Events? August 2026.

[2] FDM unified master: 27,741 complete decathlon competition records

[3] Part VI Working Annex: 100-Point FDM-40N Event Cohorts, unified master 27,741.

Reproducibility note. FDM-40N event points are truncated to integers before cohort assignment. Complete totals are recalculated OFF totals. Means and medians are rounded to whole points for communication. The 1000+ floor is open-ended; the remaining floors are consecutive 100-point bands.

APPENDIX TO FAIR DECATHLON MODEL - PART 6. DAY ONE.
Article 6 Annex - Day One: 100-Point FDM-40N Event Cohorts

Rafał Snoch for Decathlon 2000