Steven Hooker decathlete?

21.78 in 200 meters in 2004.

Pretty strong guy, but if I were him wouldnt stop my career to have to train 2 or 3 years to maybe become a top 10 decathlete.

I think it`s ok for him to keep on pursuing bubka`s record and being the second best pole vaulter in history.

Other thing would be to have started as a decathlete as a youngster and even so I think he would be better at pole vault than he would possibly be at decathlon as shown today (epic guts and strength performance)

Who's gonna tell him he'd have to run 1500 meters?

Tommy Skipper competed in the decathlon at Pac-10s in 2004 and won with 7589 in his only attempt. He's a 19 footer. I'm not saying Hooker should try or will try the dec but I think he could be an 8000 point guy with minimal training and maybe have a shot at a medal if he really trained for it.

Also, Tim Bright went had a pr of 19-1 and scored 8340 in the dec.

he is the olympic and world champion?

Why the hell would he bother with a decathlon? its not like he's struggling in pole volt and needs to try a new event...

Thats the equivalent of telling bolt he should run 800s.

Pole Vaulters generally don't translate to good Decathletes.

Carolina Kluft was a pretty good long jumper(22-10.5 pr) and she competed in the hep as well.

thats a good opposite example (HP--->LJ), the reigning queen of the heptathlon gets tired of beating the hell out of the rest and gets into a injury-riskier event and she (so far) pretty much mess up her career. (just to strugle to be top 3 to say the most in this 'new' event).figure how her face was when watching the english girl take the first place..

Imagine steve hooker, the current olympic and world champion make the transition (PV--->DC) and gets a career-ending injury in shot put for exmaple! therefore he lose the shot of trying bubkas record and win 2 more world titles and one olympic in something he is the best at right now.

not even close.

you saved yourself by saying "generally" but I need to point out that Trey Hardee was only a pole vaulter until he got to college..

fredericks second in 19.68 wrote:

thats a good opposite example (HP--->LJ), the reigning queen of the heptathlon gets tired of beating the hell out of the rest and gets into a injury-riskier event and she (so far) pretty much mess up her career. (just to strugle to be top 3 to say the most in this 'new' event).figure how her face was when watching the english girl take the first place..

Imagine steve hooker, the current olympic and world champion make the transition (PV--->DC) and gets a career-ending injury in shot put for exmaple! therefore he lose the shot of trying bubkas record and win 2 more world titles and one olympic in something he is the best at right now.

not even close.

Well, I don't know how many people know this but Stacy Dragila competed in a decathlon in 1997 before it was an iaaf sanctioned women's event. She said she enjoyed it and would like to see it become a regular women's event.

Mr. Arms wrote:

you saved yourself by saying "generally" but I need to point out that Trey Hardee was only a pole vaulter until he got to college..

No, he wasn't. He was primarily a pole vaulter, but he competed in several events and was 6th in the state decathlon championship while in HS. He ran 10.83 in the 100m and 39.82 in the 300m hurdles at state. He was runner up in pole vault. He was actually known for hurdling as much as PV. It was apparent to anyone watching him that he'd be a great decathlete when he was in HS.

Hookers hair makes him look like a hill billy while Hardee looks like he just enlisted in the Marines.Both had a great meet.

good work sherlock...no one who is good at pole vault doesn't dabble in other events in HS

the point was that he was identified himself as a pole vaulter until he entered college, and is now the world champ in the Decathlon

Honestly, this makes sense. The vault is one of the events that Decathletes are relatively weaker in

since vaulters tend to be good all-around athletes, and it's such a technical event, I would think vaulters would make good potential multi-eventers.

In fact, I would wager that in most years, the NCAA champ in the pole vault could make a run at being an All-American in the Dec with a year or two of training, there just isn't much motivation to try something like that..

Women are too wimpy to do Decathlons.

Don't be so defensive. You were wrong about him "only" being a pole vaulter in high school. No big deal.

Hooker's dad was a national 400/800 runner, mum was a long or high jumper or maybe both, can't remember. Steve did pretty brilliantly in a x-sporting tv challenge. He's super quick, super strong, super agile and has a brain that adapts really well.

He has no reason to move from the PV but yeah I reckon he could have been an international in the dec if he'd chosen that path. AFL football would have been another option.

His dad (Bill) was a 1:45 800m man back in the early 70's. Made 1974 Comm Games final. Bill moved up from the 400m sticks were he was a sub 50 runner.