The Making of a Decathlon Champion
Rain and sweat soak his close-cropped Afro and his thick black mustache. He will run three laps around the 400-meter track, just fast enough to cause pain. He will allow himself exactly 10 minutes to recover; then he will do it again, and again and again.
Daley Thompson is a decathlon champion, celebrated around the world yet virtually unknown in the United States. But not for long. He has come from England to the campus of the University of California at Irvine to prepare for the Olympics this summer in Los Angeles. He is expected to win.
Thompson is a natural sprinter, a shade over 6 feet tall with immense shoulders, broad chest and thickly muscled thighs and calves on a 189-pound frame. He covers 100 meters in 10.4 seconds, less than a half-second behind the world record and faster than any of his Olympic competitors. But sets of 1,200 meters are agony. ‘’It makes me feel like I never want to run again,’’ he says, fighting for breath between sets. ‘’I hate it.’’
Yet he knows it is the only way. In 1983, a back sprain, then a groin injury kept him from serious training for six months, but he entered the world championships in Helsinki that summer and won. ‘’I’d been training for eight years,’’ he says. ‘’That gives you a reserve. But you only have so much in the bank.’’ Now he’s back on the track, extending himself and rebuilding the reserve.
Thompson, now 25, dominates the sport. He has not lost a decathlon since the summer of 1978, when he had just turned 20. He has won the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the 1982 Commonwealth Games and European championships, and last year’s Helsinki championships. No American is within shouting distance. Even J”urgen Hingsen of West Germany, who has twice broken Thompson’s world record, has never finished within 100 points in six head-to-head competitions.
‘’Actually, I don’t think that’s an accurate indication of our relative abilities,’’ says Thompson. He pauses for effect, then adds: ‘’All things considered, we’re more like 200 points apart.’’
There is no smile, just the hint of a disarming twinkle in his eye. The combination of charm and irreverence has brought him a remarkable level of celebrity in the British Commonwealth and throughout Europe. People are taken, not only with his winning but with the way he wins. They are excited by his display of emotion, the fist pumped into the air in victory, the despair at a poor performance. He is moving into that rare company of athletes—Muhammad Ali and Joe Namath have been among them—who transcend the games they play. They are the stuff of legends.
Thompson’s event contributes to his aura. In a time of ultraspecialization in sports, when designated hitters never have to field a baseball, the decathlon represents the Renaissance ideal of balance. Its superheroes—Jim Thorpe, Bob Mathias, Bruce Jenner—were not the greatest runners or jumpers or strongest athletes of their time. Their test of physical—and mental—endurance came over two days of competition: 100-meter dash, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400-meter run the first day; 110-meter hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1,500-meter run the second. We may never think about the decathlon between Olympics. But the names of its victors never die. To them and them alone is accorded the title, world’s greatest athlete.
HE LITTLE luncheonette in Crawley was jammed with Christmas shoppers that bright December day in 1979. No one paid attention to the two young athletes in the back booth—Daley Thompson, in his blue running pants and jacket, and his longtime friend Richard Slaney, the giant discus thrower, in luminescent red. Slaney, 6 foot 7 and nearly 300 pounds, was just back from his first term at San Diego State University. They laughed and wolfed down their greasy, double- decker hamburgers. Slaney was born and raised in this middle-class suburb of London; Thompson had trained at the village’s sports center since 1975.
They were talking about the coming Olympics in Moscow. ‘’July 25 and 26; I fantasize about it,’’ Thompson said. He leaned forward, eyes sparkling, living the experience. ‘’The day after doesn’t mean anything to me. The celebration. I’m not up to that yet. I’ve only got as far as the 1,500. I might die when it’s over, but as long as I’ve won, I don’t mind.’’
I was in England researching an article on the decathlon. Thompson was one of several athletes I wanted to interview. He had won impressively at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, but had faltered a month later at the more important European championships. Still, there was something about him—a jaunty walk, an enthusiasm about everything from sports cars to politics. I ended up shadowing him for two weeks. He showed the ability, so rare in a 21-year-old, to be comfortable wherever he went.
Three days later, Thompson entered a race at the Nahim made it impossible. His edge as an athlete—his competitiveness—is not reserved for the track. Nor does the irony escape him. ‘’You think it’s easy,’’ he asked, ‘’cutting off your nose to spite your face?’’
Even close friends such as Pan Zeniou, a Cyprus-born decathlete who by that time had been Thompson’s training partner for about six years, find him perplexing.
‘’You wouldn’t call him easy,’’ Zeniou says. ‘’When he wants to go training, he wants to go then. If you’re in the middle of lunch or watching television, it doesn’t matter. His life revolves around the decathlon; he assumes that’s true for everyone. It’s not always.’’
Thompson seemed to be two people, sometimes warm and giving, sometimes remote. He had left a normal life far behind, and he was content with the trade-offs.
On a Sunday evening in June 1983, Daley Thompson stretched out on a bed in a high-rise hotel in downtown Toronto. Track shoes and sweat suits littered the floor. In two days, he was scheduled to compete in a Canadian senior decathlon, but the usual before-match tension was missing. ‘’This is a tuneup,’’ he said. ‘’I’ve come to see how I’m getting along.’’
Early that February, long- jumping at an indoor meet at the University of Toronto, he had injured himself. Somewhere between the take-off board and the sand pit—somewhere during that 25-foot- plus flight—he had strained his back. It was bad, bad enough so that he had to withdraw from the competition. All winter long, the pain had forced him to cut back his running and hurdling; he couldn’t long jump at all.
Now, back in Toronto, he would find out how much his body had recovered. That would answer the real question: Just how hard would he be able to train for the world championships in Helsinki in August? My own interest in the Toronto event was more personal than professional; my book on Thompson had just come out in England.
There was only one flaw in Thompson’s plan. Since no one in the decathlon was on his level, he would be able to win without pushing himself. Then he mentioned that J”urgen Hingsen had been in a decathlon that weekend, and I picked up the telephone to find out the results. Suddenly, the competition took on another dimension.
In May 1982, Thompson had set a world record for the decathlon, only to have Hingsen break it three months later. In September, Thompson broke the record once again. But when I called the Associated Press that evening in Toronto, an editor reported that Hingsen was back on top, with a score of 8,777. I scrawled the four digits on a piece of paper and showed it to Daley. First he frowned, then he forced a smile. ‘’Wouldn’t it be funny,’’ he said, ‘’if Hingsen set the record on Sunday and lost it on Wednesday?’’
The first day of the competition was bright and sunny; winds gusted through Etobicoke Centennial Stadium in Toronto. Thompson broke out fast in the 100—arms pumping, knees lifting only slightly, legs stretched out behind. The instant he crossed the line a look of relief flashed across his face. He was stiff, but he was feeling no serious, threatening pain.
His winning effort in the 100—10.44 seconds—was worth 948 points. In a decathlon, all times and distances are converted to points with the help of a little paperbound book called the scoring tables, last revised in 1962. In the tables, 1,000 points are awarded for any performance that approaches the world record in a particular event as of 1960.
At Toronto, after a solid performance in the long jump and shot put, Thompson faced the high jump and some decisions. Decathletes develop an uncanny ability to gauge their energy levels at any given moment of a competition. Depending upon that level, they will go all out in an event, or hold back and save themselves for the next challenge.
Thompson made his first high-jump attempt at 1.85 meters, and succeeded. The bar is raised in increments of .03 meters, but Thompson didn’t try again until 1.91; he made it, but passed until 1.97. He had to balance the energy loss in each attempt against the danger that he would lose the rhythm of the event.
He eventually cleared 2.09 meters and tried twice at 2.12. He wanted it badly, since it would represent the highest he had jumped in a decathlon. But he never made the third attempt. The next and last event of the day, the 400-meter run, would be particularly grueling; he knew he would need all his energy.
Thompson was right. His lack of training and the gusting wind hurt him in the 400. At day’s end, he had 4,503 points.
‘’I really can’t complain,’’ Thompson told the press before heading off for a back massage. He was relieved, he told me later, that he felt as well as he did. The bad news: His first day total was 46 points behind his own record pace, and 20 points behind Hingsen’s first-day performance that weekend. Hingsen usually is stronger the second day; Thompson the first.
But he still had a chance. If he did really well in the first event, the hurdles, it might give him an emotional high that he could ride through the other events. This psychological lift, familiar to athletes in all sports, translates physically and mentally into a superior performance. But maintaining that high is particularly tough in the decathlon, where the events are so different and so much time elapses between them.
The next morning, Thompson ran a fine race, but it was in vain. The wind at his back exceeded the level permitted in calculating world records. Now there was no challenge. He continued to compete, but the fire was gone.
His discus throw was uninspired. And when the other pole vaulters failed at 4.50 meters, the point at which Thompson began, the prospects looked dull.
Vaulters may start the event at any level they choose, but if they fail to make the opening height they earn no points for the event. But Thompson has developed into a confident vaulter.
On this day, he cleared 4.50 easily and moved to 4.90. He missed his first try, but showed no emotion. He stood to one side. His eyes moved along the 40-meter runway as if he were watching a film rerun, trying to spot the instant when he went wrong.
He tried again, and made it. Then he cleared 5.10 on the second attempt. ‘’I was going to do a back flip in the pit,’’ he said, grinning coyly, ‘’but I changed my mind.’’ He failed three times at 5.20.
After an average javelin throw, Thompson checked with the scorer to see how fast he would have to run the 1,500 meters to reach a total of
last jump
8,500 points. He then proceeded, without benefit of a stopwatch, to run the distance two seconds faster than he had been told. He finished with 8,509 points.
As it turned out, his enthusiasm was nearly his undoing. He flew home the next day, and started training that very afternoon. While throwing the discus, trying to ‘’really hit one,’’ he pulled a groin muscle so severely that he could not walk for a week. For the next four weeks, he could neither bend nor twist. Two weeks before the Helsinki championships, he tried hurdling and fell on his face.
Not until the night before the decathlon did he decide to compete. ‘’I figured,’’ he said, ‘’even if I could only do two or three things, people would see that I could do those things better than anybody else.’’
The weather was in the mid-50’s, rainy and blustery. At one point, Hingsens shook his fist at the offending sky. Thompson went out strong in the 100, built his lead in the long jump, hung tight in the shot and, essentially, ended the competition in the high jump, usually a strength for the taller Hingsen. Thompson cruised to a 105-point victory over the West German, scoring 8,666 points. And he loved every minute. At the end of the pole vault, after he again reached 5.10 meters, he moved to the middle of the pit and executed a perfect back flip.
To the millions who watched on television and in Olympic Stadium, the victory was astounding. They had heard of Thompson’s injuries, they knew that Hingsen had just broken the world record.
But decathlon experts expected nothing less. Frank Zarnowski, a professor of economics at Mount St. Mary’s College in Emmitsburg, Md., and the foremost authority on the sport in the United States, commented: ‘’Hingsen seems to be pretty good at ringing up the points, especially at home in a nice, set-up meet. Thompson prefers the head-to-head competition. He’s much more of a fighter.’’
For Thompson, California has long represented a kind of training paradise. He has been going there since the winter of 1978, visiting Slaney, working out with other British friends, spending eight or 10 weeks far from the foul weather and personal pressures of London. Nobody interrupts his lunch for autographs in California—not yet, at least.
This season, Thompson arrived in September, nearly 10 months before the Olympics, with no plans to leave until after he had won his second gold medal. I found him in an autumnal mood.
The old gang was gone. Slaney had graduated. Neither Zeniou nor Snowy Brooks, another decathlon training buddy, could free himself from his job in London. Inevitably, in any sport, lesser athletes drop off to get on with their lives when they recognize that they will not reach the top. Because it takes so long to achieve success in the decathlon, the man on top spends more years alone.
Two years earlier, I had talked with Zeniou in California. He was 29 years old and unhappy about his decathlon record and his bank account. Speaking of Thompson, Zeniou said: ‘’He wants me to go on to 1984. It will be very difficult. I know what he’s going to do, and I want to be part of it, but I’ll be 31 then—what will I have?’’
Thompson understood the decision. ‘’They find other things, or they realize it’s never to be,’’ he said. His voice held a note of sadness.
Changes in the rules governing amateur sports now permitted product endorsement, and Thompson holds lucrative contracts with Faberge, Adidas and other companies. But he complained about the calls he received each day from London about business arrangements. ‘’I don’t need to make more money,’’ he said. ‘’I need to train—nothing else.’’
Even training had its problems. He had no professional coach. He wanted a warm-up meet before the Olympics, and there was none in sight. (Finally, a British friend and runner, Dave Jenkins, organized a decathlon that was held last week at the University of California at Los Angeles.)
He was working out with John Crist, one of the top Americans in the decathlon, though 600 points behind Thompson. A tall Alabaman, Crist hopes to be one of the three Americans to qualify for the Olympics later this month in the trials in Los Angeles. Mark Anderson of Diamond Bar, Calif., is the top-rated American decathlete; his best score is 8,250 points.
Each morning, Thompson pored over his books and journals on exercise and technique, grabbed a breakfast of cereal and milk and was at the track by 10:30. He broke for lunch about 1:30, returned by 3 P.M. and worked until dark.
The two men were a team. When Thompson vaulted, Crist coached. When Crist ran, Thompson coached.
‘’More arms, more arms,’’ he shouted. A runner must pump his arms to get the most out of his legs. Once it was Zeniou who did the pushing; now that role has fallen to Thompson.
‘’This is the time to do it,’’ he told Crist before one of those sessions. ‘’This is the time to push. Then next May or next July, when you come to the line for the 1,500 and you need a faster time than you’d think possible, you can say to yourself, ‘I remember last winter—I ran that fast.’ And you’ll know you can do it.’’ The lesson Thompson learned in Helsinki has never left him.
At the Olympics, Thompson will be after one of the oldest records in the Games, Bob Mathias’s two decathlon gold medals, won in 1948 and 1952. ‘’If Thompson wins in Los Angeles,’’ Mathias told me, ‘’and I think he will, I’m going to jump the fence and congratulate the guy. I’ll tell him, ‘Daley, I’m the only American who’s won it twice.’ ‘’
Thompson is not, however, likely to be satisfied with a victory in Los Angeles. All he wants—all he has ever wanted—is more. After Los Angeles, there will be Seoul in 1988.
‘’I got a postcard from him after Moscow,’’ Mathias recalled. ‘’All it said was, ‘I’m going for three. It was signed ‘Daley.’ ‘’
One afternoon, downing a huge cup of soda at a fast-food restaurant near the Irvine campus, Thompson took up a familiar theme. ‘’I have a fantasy,’’ he said. ‘’I’d like to get all the great decathletes in history together for a meet. Thorpe, Mathias, Jenner, all in their prime. Then we’d see who’s the best. I know, of course. But it would be good fun.’’