Which athlete would be the best in the world at a decathlon-style running event?

Not a distance runner, for sure. A Seb Coe type would probably do well.

Actually a Peter Snell type might do even better.

Tigist Assefa

I'd have to think a 1500-5000 guy with good basic speed would be able to accumulate the most points overall, although that heavily depends on how highly you rate elite 1500 runners' 100-400m speed, some people think that the best have 47ish while others might say 49.

I’m selecting Said Aouita, the only person in history to run sub-1:44, sub-3:30, sub-7:30, and sub-13:00. In his prime and equipped with super shoes, he’d be amazing at this.

I wonder what would be the best way to approach training for this. Training to run your best marathon would take up too many miles and probably hinder your ability for the other events, if there's any event you'd write off and just choose to plod along at an average pace for a few hundred points it would be that one.

Perhaps distance runners have an advantage since they are already well-tuned for the more taxing events so wouldn't have to train as hard. Sprinters would be screwed because unless they've secretly been doing 30 miles a week on top of their training there's no chance in hell of them getting a good points haul for the 1500m and up. A 12 second 100m dash, a time which any elite athlete should be able to hit with a bit of training nets you 615 points whereas a 3 hour marathon only gets you 439, and there's still a good chance you DNF or blow up if you didn't train properly or have a bad day. It comes down to the middle distance runners or the marathoners for me. Ingebrigtsen or Kiplimo probably coming out on top.

There is a guy in Canada that might be good at this although he has no 'Thon experience.

I suspect Alan Webb would've been a legit contender for this style event.