Problems of Decathlon

Hi Jessica,


Nice topic!


Another problem decathlon often suffers are:


1) Too little time to recover between two events (especially when there's lots of participants like it was, in Berlin this year; maybe you even remember Roman Sebrle before 1500m - he was really angry because of too little time for to recover, so the result at final event was potentially worse than otherwise)


2) Time delays due to skill level at some events, for example, pole vault. Some of the decathletes like to start at heights 3.80, while some of them like to start at 5.00 (well, no decathletes currently using this as the first attempt, currently). This means while all the decathletes come from warm-up area to stadium at the same time, some of them may actually start for example, two hours later. This time could be used more effectively - so who jumps 4.50 arrives earlier and leavers earlier. Who jumps 5.20 arrives later and leaves later. This gives decathletes plan their time better and plan meals, warm-ups and other processes better.


As with other issues you mentioned, I completely agree - decathlon should need more attention. Athletes often get energy from people watching the show and having, for example, 50,000 people energizing you with their claps and voices, is definitely a pure power source psychologically.


Also, as decathlon is TEN events, not ONE, they literally need to do ten times more work to be good at all events and so they have a risk to fail ten times more than a specialized athlete. Considering all this - completing a decathlon is just so so big honor; this could also probably be the reason why decathletes are sometimes called the kings of athletics. If they're already named this way, why not to pay more attention to the event itself? Maybe to add small intro about decathlon to every ticket a visitor buys. This way people can also plan their time better and manage to stay at the stadium to energize athletes at their hard way to the end of each day. The small booklet could also explain the "what's-it-all-about-the-points" easily. When people understand it, they are more interested in watching the event.


In general, I think the organizers of the athletic events meet that kind of topics daily (or annually) - I think one of the solutions would definitely be, to allowing more flexible time management for decathletes - even when it is as important event as world championships or olympic games. When people also appreciate the event more, this together with more flexible time organizing, could result to new high scores at decathlon so it is a win-win-win situation