All-time top 10 decathletes

It depends on the ground of what we consider all-time top ten - highest number of winning (olympic) medal, stability, all-time best performances etc.


I predict there is a many alternatives. If somebody have something, please post here.

I thought it might be easier to start to break them down into 3 categories:


Pre WWII (Thorpe, Hoff, Sheridan, Kiely, etc)


WWII - 1979 (Mathias, Rafer, Campbell, Avilov, Kuznetsov, Jenner, Toomey, etc)


1980- Present (Thompson, Hingsen, O'Brien, Sebrle, Clay, Dvorak, etc)

Proposal for calculation:


world record set 15 points;

olympic games gold medal 12 points;

olympic games silver medal 10 points;

olympic games bronze medal 8 points;

world championships gold medal 10 points;

world championships gold medal 8 points;

world championships gold medal 6 points;

european, us, etc championships gold medal 8 points;

european, us, etc championships gold medal 6 points;

european, us, etc championships gold medal 4 points;

season best score in the world 6 points;

season secend score in the world 4 points;

season third score in the world 2 points;

for stability: every decathlon over 8000 gives 1 points;


max. 3 categories are acceptable

RANT. most people only see decathlon on tv during OLYMPICS. announcer says winner scores 8800. general population doesnt have a clue. to emphasize, speaker says, ''in perspective, great JIM THORPE would have only scored 6000 points here''. trying to make a point with the ignorant masses who will forget it before the next commercial is over. what were THORPES marks in relation to the world records at the time? compare apples to apples. forget different scoring tables. we can see how old records change when new tables come out. some athletes benefit and others lose. just devide the mark into the world record at that time. use calculator, faster than looking it up on the tables. anybody with the info want to do the numbers? decathlons will all be judged by the same standard ALL the time. compare THORPE to the other world record holders. thanks for listening.