Which sports are in the decathlon?

Well, that’s exactly the daunting task that every participant in the decathlon event at the Paris 2024 Olympics will have faced and conquered in order to be there.

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Such is the nature of the decathlon in testing an athlete’s combined performance across a variety of athletic endeavours, the title of "World’s Greatest Athlete" has been bestowed upon the winner in a tradition that began with Jim Thorpe, the American athlete who won gold in the inaugural Olympic decathlon in 1912.

The modern decathlon, which first began to resemble its current format in the early 1900s, is derived from the five-event pentathlon which was a regular feature of the Ancient Olympics, and comprised of wrestling, a sprint, long jump, discus and javelin.

At many top-level international competitions, including the Olympics, the decathlon is contested only by men, while women compete in the heptathlon (seven events).

But just which sports are involved in the decathlon, and how does it work? RadioTimes.com explains all.

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Which sports are in the decathlon?

The modern decathlon consists of 10 track and field events, which at most international and elite-level competitions are split across two days.

In order, these are:

Day One

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

Day Two

• 110m hurdles
• Discus
• Pole vault
• Javelin
• 1500m

So, how is the overall decathlon winner decided, with so many different events?

Each athlete’s performance in each event is judged on a points system specific to that event.

A formula takes into account the athlete’s time (100m, 110m hurdles, 400m, 1500m), distance thrown (discus, javelin) or jumped (long jump) or height leapt (high jump), alongside some pre-determined parameters for that event, to produce a points score for each athlete in each event.

Each athlete’s points per event is then added up, with the winner being whoever has the highest total – meaning it’s more about overall performance than placings in the individual events.

Joint winners are declared if athletes end a competition level on overall points.

Among the other rules are that one false start in the track events is permitted, but a second will see you disqualified, while decathletes are limited to three attempts each in the shot put, javelin and long jump.

The current decathlon world record holder is France’s two-time Olympic silver medallist Kevin Mayer, who achieved a total of 9,126 points at the 2018 Décastar event in Talence, France.

Mayer finished second behind then-world record holder and two-time Olympic champion Ashton Eaton of the USA at Rio 2016, and was runner-up again in Tokyo three years ago, that time to Canada’s Damian Warner.

Warner, who set the Olympic Games record in Tokyo at 9,018 points, also set two best-ever marks in the decathlon for the 100m (10.12 seconds) and the 110m hurdles (13.36 seconds).

The Canadian’s performance at those Games landed him fourth in the all-time rankings behind Mayer, Eaton and long-retired Czech decathlete Roman Šebrle, while Warner currently sits second in the decathlon world rankings as of April 2024.

Other all-time great decathletes include Eaton’s countryman and fellow back-to-back (1948 and 1952) Olympic champion Bob Mathias and Britain’s Daley Thompson (1980 and 1984 Olympian champion), who alongside Eaton (2012 and 2016) are the only decathletes to win consecutive Olympic titles.

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