Great Britain’s now legendary decathlete Daley Thompson opened the 1980 Olympic season with a world decathlon record of 8,648 points at Götzis, Austria in May….following this with a comfortable gold medal win at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. After a quiet 1981 season….he raised the world record to 8,730 points….then in September at the European Championships in Athens….he took the record up to 8,774 points….then in the following month in Brisbane….he his second Commonwealth title. In 1983, Daley won the inaugural World Championships and became the first decathlete to hold a continental title….in his case the European title and the World and Olympic titles simultaneously. He also became by virtue of his World title, the first athlete in any athletics event to hold Olympic, World, continental and Commonwealth Games titles in a single event simultaneously.
He spent much of the summer of 1984 in California preparing for the defense of his Olympic title….with Jürgen Hingsen of West Germany….who had succeeded Thompson as the world record holder….was expected to be a major threat to him in Los Angeles.Thompson took the lead in the first event and was never headed throughout the competition….although it seemed that by easing off in the 1,500 meters he had missed tying the world record by just one point. When the photo-finish pictures were examined….it was found that Thompson should have been credited with one more point in the 110 meter hurdles….so Thompson had in fact equaled Hingsen’s record. Then when the new scoring tables were introduced….Thompson became the sole record holder once more with a recalculated score of 8,847 points….a world record that stood until 1992….when it was surpassed by the American athlete Dan O’Brien with a score of 8891. His two victories in the decathlon are a feat shared only with the American Bob Mathias. Thompson’s 1984 performance is still the UK record.
