If Ashton Eaton trained for his best event, what would it be and what would be his PR?

I am also of the opinion that he would be a 20 foot pole vaulter. Eaton has the perfect combination of speed, power and patience to master the event. I do think this could be his best event.

I have always felt he should focus on 110 hurdles or pole vault as he spends way less on these than an elite plus he has to be a little too bulky upper body so if he focused on just one he would be WR level in either. He should focus on a single event maybe after London 2017 Worlds through 2019 World and after 2 seasons of that then see what he could accomplish and that would prolong his career and the training and competing demands would go way done. Then in 2020 he could decide to go back to deca or stay focused on multi but honestly at that point his age will start to work against him in a multi so individual event probably better choice.

I say leaned up he could run 9.90 in 100 but he would still not medal. Long jump he no doubt could go 28 plus but its also an event that is high in injury rate especially in older athletes and it pays way less so why risk it. Be cool to have him fresh (not after deca) run leg on 4x4 at Olympics or Worlds.

sjsknssjsj wrote:

Uhhff wrote:

No. That's how training works.

???

So he has the same talent to be a marathoner as a 400h guy?

Careful, you're engaging one of those guys that was told he could be anything he set his mind to.

pole vault. you can see WR potential there.

110 h. or 400 h next. maybe metals there, probably.

could make finals in 100m and 400m flat but that is more speculation.

sjsknssjsj wrote:

Uhhff wrote:

No. That's how training works.

???

So he has the same talent to be a marathoner as a 400h guy?

I see nothing about him that says otherwise. Again, that's how training works. You pick a distance and you do the training for it. Do you not know how training works?

lunatic fringe wrote:

Careful, you're engaging one of those guys that was told he could be anything he set his mind to.

What problem do you have with that? If you figure out how to do something, doesn't that mean you have figured out how to do it? Your statement makes no sense.

It especially doesn't make sense because the person we are talking about clearly has been able to do anything he's set his mind to. He's the world record holder of the decathlon. Some of you are compete idiots.

Uhhff wrote:

sjsknssjsj wrote:

???

So he has the same talent to be a marathoner as a 400h guy?

I see nothing about him that says otherwise. Again, that's how training works. You pick a distance and you do the training for it. Do you not know how training works?

We all know how training works. I don't think you understand how it works. Under your theory everyone has the same capability it's just a matter of putting in the 'training' for whatever event you so happen to choose.

Kinda odd how all the East Africans seem to pick the marathon instead of the 100m to train for. Wonder why that is.

Because they dont know how training works

Go Eaton!

polevaultpower wrote:

And it isn't just that he has the speed to be an amazing pole vaulter, he has proven that he is willing to take off like a 20' vaulter, a thing few decathletes are willing to do.

Everyone in the pole vault community would be thrilled if Ashton declared his undying love for the pole vault and focused on it for a few years. I absolutely think he would medal in it.

Not going to happen, but I can dream :)

Becca, lets not get ahead of ourselves. Speed is helpful in PV, but it isn't everything. The last WR holder was about 10 flat speed in the 100m. However, the current WR holder only has a PR of 11.04 in the 100m. Granted he hasn't run it that many times, but he did jump and sprint as a junior, so he has practice competing in the 100m. When he ran that PR, he was training for a Dec in an attempt to get the Dec PV WR.

What makes Renaud able to compete with guys a second faster than him in the 100m is that he has the ability to run 10m/s with a pole. Ashton hasn't shown that ability yet, so I wouldn't automatically assume Ashton's superior speed would translate to superior runway speed. I suspect Ashton would be able to rival for medals in the pole vault if he put years of dedicated training into it, but I' not convinced he would be a shoe-in for world records.

I've watched them both practicing in person. Ashton clearly is the more powerful athlete, but Renaud has amazing body awareness and control. I've seen him standing at a runway while other people are jumping, completely not warmed up, wearing sweat pants (he's french...) and weird skater shoes, decide he is bored and pick up a random pole and start at a random distance from the box, jog in, and clear 15 feet and finish with a back flip onto the mat. Ashton is never going to have that body awareness. So I see him as trying to become equal to the best PVers in history, not surpassing them.

Uhhff wrote:

lunatic fringe wrote:

Careful, you're engaging one of those guys that was told he could be anything he set his mind to.

What problem do you have with that? If you figure out how to do something, doesn't that mean you have figured out how to do it? Your statement makes no sense.

It especially doesn't make sense because the person we are talking about clearly has been able to do anything he's set his mind to. He's the world record holder of the decathlon. Some of you are compete idiots.

Oh dear. It's worse than I thought.

looky here wrote:

We all know how training works. I don't think you understand how it works. Under your theory everyone has the same capability it's just a matter of putting in the 'training' for whatever event you so happen to choose.

Kinda odd how all the East Africans seem to pick the marathon instead of the 100m to train for. Wonder why that is.

I didn't say that was my theory. You clearly have poor reading comprehension and logic abilities. Read more carefully next time.

Your next statement makes even less sense. All of the East Africans do NOT seem to pick the marathon. They compete in a wide variety of events.

Uhhff wrote:

looky here wrote:

We all know how training works. I don't think you understand how it works. Under your theory everyone has the same capability it's just a matter of putting in the 'training' for whatever event you so happen to choose.

Kinda odd how all the East Africans seem to pick the marathon instead of the 100m to train for. Wonder why that is.

I didn't say that was my theory. You clearly have poor reading comprehension and logic abilities. Read more carefully next time.

Your next statement makes even less sense. All of the East Africans do NOT seem to pick the marathon. They compete in a wide variety of events.

So...what's your event?

Uhhff wrote:

looky here wrote:

We all know how training works. I don't think you understand how it works. Under your theory everyone has the same capability it's just a matter of putting in the 'training' for whatever event you so happen to choose.

Kinda odd how all the East Africans seem to pick the marathon instead of the 100m to train for. Wonder why that is.

I didn't say that was my theory. You clearly have poor reading comprehension and logic abilities. Read more carefully next time.

Your next statement makes even less sense. All of the East Africans do NOT seem to pick the marathon. They compete in a wide variety of events.

Indeed.

If Kenyans runners trained for powerlifting they would DOMINATE

dnnsnnsnsnz wrote:

Indeed.

If Kenyans runners trained for powerlifting they would DOMINATE

?

engaging a madman wrote:

So...what's your event?

How is that relevant?

llllllllll wrote:

If he could only do one event/discipline, and trained exclusively for 2 year or more, what would it be and what would he do?

I say 400m and 43.9

OP made a good estimate at 43.9 for 400m, though I think Eaton would compete best and go 47.3 at 400 hurdles after slimming down by 15-20 pounds (6.804-9.071 kg.)

Uhhff wrote:

engaging a madman wrote:

So...what's your event?

How is that relevant?

It will; help us understand how and why you selected it.

This post is remarkably misinformed. Renaud Lavillenie's coach, Phillipe D'Encausse, presented at the Pole Vault Summit in Reno last year and he presented data showing Renaud having been clocked at speeds as fast as 10.66 m/s on the runway during his jumps. One would have to assume that Renaud could get pretty close to 11 m/s when not carrying a 17 foot long pole. Renaud is clearly the fastest pole vaulter in the world today, probably ever. That is why he is the world record holder at all of 5'9" tall in an event typically dominated by guys over 6' tall.

According to Petrov (Bubka's coach) Bubka never achieved speeds much faster than 10 m/s during the vault, the fastest semi-official speed I've seen for Bubka on the runway was around 9.94 m/s, taken from a 5 meter split just before the plant. References to Bubka's supposed 10 second 100m speed are completely unsubstantiated, I believe these references stem from taking his runway speed and applying that over 100m which at best would give him flying 100m time of around 10 seconds. Realistically Bubka would have been lucky to break 11 seconds FAT out of blocks. Steve Hooker, the Australian record holder and Olympic gold medalist is another nearly 20 foot vaulter with an official 100m PR of 10.82. It's reasonable to expect that Bubka would have been in that range somewhere, with Renaud Lavillenie probably at least a couple of tenths of a second faster than that. Here's another discussion on Bubka's speed:

The fact is Bubka is taller than Renaud at 6'2" tall and he had a more dynamic take off (he jumped off the ground more before loading the pole) which allowed him to jump roughly the same height as Renaud from a slower speed. Of course the rest of Bubka's technique is the standard by which all vaulters are still measured by today, which all added up to make him the best vaulter of all time.

So back to Ashton Eaton. He would probably be the fastest pole vaulter we've ever seen. His 100m times and his long jumps puts his top speed in the range of 11.2+ m/s. Frankly I don't think we've ever seen an athlete anywhere near capable of a 27' long jump focus on the the pole vault before. It's possible if he wasn't training for the throws and the 400, 1500 etc he might be capable of something closer to 11.4-11.5 m/s for his top speed. So put a 17'6" pole in his hand and get him up to something like 10.8+ m/s on the runway, man it would be unlike anything we've ever seen in the event. Of course there is a heck of a lot more to the vault than just runway speed, but if we could magically send Ashton to Russia to study under Petrov for a couple of years I like his odds at breaking the world record. I'm not sure we could say that about any of the other 9 events.