Failing in just one event can end a decathlete's entire competition, with no points scored and no chance of recovery - no matter how well they've performed elsewhere.
Decathlon 2000 has pretty much everything you could want to know about decathlon. Whenever I go to a decathlon, you can be sure that I’ve got a sheaf of Decathlon 2000 athlete profiles printed, tabbed, and highlighted in my notebook - Gabby Pieraccini