Decathlon; Overrated or Underrated?

Bad Wigins wrote:

Decathlon is unwatchable and involves too many events that are 19th century relics long overdue to be discarded.

And now despite it may piss off many, I will diss some of these relics.

discus: this is not an athletic skill! Nobody really knows what it was, maybe a close range weapon in ancient warfare, but useless.

shot: this is a 19th century range weapon meant to be fired from a cannon! If you're out of powder you might do a bit of damage by throwing it, if your enemy is close enough and not already killing you with an automatic rifle. Not a sport!

hurdles: nobody runs OVER ten things in their way to get 110 meters. They go AROUND the things. This was probably thought up by some kind of demented Englishman drunk at a pub at 2 am.

pole vault: this actually is a real thing, but for distance - getting across water. There's no practical purpose in jumping high with a stick, the real world doesn't have that hole in the ground to brace it. Not a sport! And Mondo skinny as a skater shows how "athletic" it is. Acrobat, not athlete!

high jump: this would be okay if ONLY you didn't get to land on a mat. Try that in the real world and your neck or back breaks. Ideally you should have to land on your feet and not fall, like the gymnasts and skaters used to. Not even as athletic as a gymnast or skater!

This means 5 of 10 decathlon events aren't legit.

Nope... wrote:

kirkandorules wrote:

Not debating any of that, just think that its funny that you get to be called "world's greatest athlete" by running hobbyjogger times, plus it's not really accurate because better athletes do exist. That's great for Damian Warner if he's near world class in a couple events. That's impressive. But guess what? Grant Holloway is better at those very same events, and has other PRs better than Warner in events he doesn't even train for. Karsten Warholm and Mondo Duplantis put up numbers in their non-primary events in high school that would be competitive in the Olympic decathlon. So yeah, I think there are plenty of guys who could win it if they wanted to.

I believe I heard some announcers say Warholm was the world junior octathlon champion, I think in 2013. It wouldn't surprise me if he medaled at or even won an olympic decathlon if he entered. My main question would be how well does he pole vault, I guess I could look it up...How well does Duplantis hurdle and throw or run?