Catching up with the world decathlon champion

A look back at the key moments of 2020 in the combined events and relays

Ash Moloney broke the Oceania Area decathlon record on Sunday (20), tallying 8492 points at the Queensland Combined Events Championships in Brisbane.

World Athletics is deeply saddened to hear that 1960 Olympic decathlon champion Rafer Johnson – widely regarded as one of the all-time greats in the combined events – died on Wednesday (2) at the age of 86.

Niklas Kaul’s world U20 decathlon record of 8435 has been ratified, following validation of the post-event surveys that had to be undertaken at Grosseto’s Carlo Zecchini Stadium.

The Ultimate Garden Clash series continues on Sunday 7 June with a trans-continental meeting of combined events titans. 

As the athletics world took its first few tentative steps into 2020, the 2019 World Championships decathlon seemed a world away.

With most of the major athletics competitions and series of 2019 having reached their conclusion, we look back at the key moments of the year in each area of the sport.

Two years ago, behind the decathlon medal-winning trio of Kevin Mayer, Rico Freimuth and Kai Kazmirek at the World Championships in London, a breakthrough was happening. 23-year old Estonian Janek Õiglane was having the performance of his career, finishing fourth with a lifetime best of 8371.

Two-time world and twice Olympic decathlon champion Ashton Eaton reflects on his younger days, and with the benefit of time and experience, on what he would now tell himself.

Damian Warner of Canada and Austrian Verena Preiner, the bronze medallists at the IAAF World Athletics Championships Doha 2019 in the decathlon and heptathlon, respectively, topped the end-of-season standings in the 2019 IAAF Combined Events Challenge.

On 24 July 1952 at the Olympic Games in Helsinki, Czechoslovakia’s Emil Zátopek kicked away from the field in the final 150 metres to take gold in the 5000m. An hour later, his wife Dana Zátopková matched his achievement by winning the Olympic title in the javelin to complete a husband-wife medal double on the same day.