Has anybody figured out how a top decathlete would do in a dual meet? Take for example Dvorak and Sebrle on their best days, against a medium track power like, say, Norway. I imagine you'd have to immediately concede all the long-distance races to the Norwegians, but could Dvorak-Sebrle pull out the win?
noone wrote:Has anybody figured out how a top decathlete would do in a dual meet? Take for example Dvorak and Sebrle on their best days, against a medium track power like, say, Norway. I imagine you'd have to immediately concede all the long-distance races to the Norwegians, but could Dvorak-Sebrle pull out the win?
No. There are way too many events for that. Seberle/Dvorak would likely win HJ, LJ and 110H. Yes, even HJ! Last time I checked nobody in Norway had cleared more than 2.10 in 2007.
If it were a real dual meet, of course, there wouldn't be enough rest time between events for them to keep doubling back. If you built in the normal decathlon minimum of 30 minutes rest between events, the dual meet would take an absurdly long time to finish. So this would have to be a paper (or computer) competition.
A different question: A country picks their top athlete in each decathlon event. Then over 2 days, Eaton/Sebrle competes against that team of 10. Who has the highest decathlon score?
Would be interesting to see the comparison for different countries.
Another question: How many countries' national records for the 10 events of the decathlon sum to fewer points than Eaton/Sebrle scored?
I just checked one country: Tanzania. Despite scoring 1168 in the 1500, total decathlon score for these 10 national records is 8931. I imagine we would find similar low scores for most countries where there are few facilities and coaches for the technical events.
Eaton versus two athletes from the same country, one doing a heptathlon and the other a throws triathlon. You could make it more even if you required five events from each, especially if you had a Day 1 guy and then a Day 2 guy.
26mi235 wrote:Eaton versus two athletes from the same country, one doing a heptathlon and the other a throws triathlon. You could make it more even if you required five events from each, especially if you had a Day 1 guy and then a Day 2 guy.
Any way you look at it, he's winning 5 events against mid-tier nations.
Top 20. Look down a little further and line up his 2012 PBs against their 2012 NLs.
1. (1.) United States (USA) North and Central America 57802 (57806) (44) 2. (2.) Kenya (KEN) Africa 56113 (56107) (44) 3. (3.) Great Britain & NI (GBR) Europe 53339 (53380) (44) 4. (4.) Russia (RUS) Europe 53294 (53354) (44) 5. (5.) Germany (GER) Europe 52586 (52579) (44) 6. (6.) France (FRA) Europe 52404 (52414) (44) 7. (7.) Jamaica (JAM) North and Central America 52070 (52101) (44) 8. (8.) Poland (POL) Europe 51789 (51830) (44) 9. (9.) China (CHN) Asia 51134 (51205) (44) 10. (10.) Spain (ESP) Europe 50816 (50814) (44) 11. (11.) Ukraine (UKR) Europe 50758 (50792) (44) 12. (12.) Canada (CAN) North and Central America 50702 (50733) (44) 13. (13.) Italy (ITA) Europe 50687 (50715) (44) 14. (14.) Japan (JPN) Asia 50670 (50691) (44) 15. (15.) Brazil (BRA) South America 50526 (50542) (44) 16. (16.) South Africa (RSA) Africa 50471 (50511) (44) 17. (17.) Australia (AUS) Oceania 50394 (50435) (44) 18. (18.) Cuba (CUB) North and Central America 49912 (49972) (44) 19. (19.) Czech Republic (CZE) Europe 49175 (49137) (44) 20. (20.) Netherlands (NED) Europe 48985 (49011) (44)
P.S. Not sure what their criteria are, but where is Kenya's strength EXCEPT the 800 up? The throws? The sprints? 110H? HJ? PV? TJ?
26mi235 wrote:Eaton versus two athletes from the same country, one doing a heptathlon and the other a throws triathlon. You could make it more even if you required five events from each, especially if you had a Day 1 guy and then a Day 2 guy.
Any way you look at it, he's winning 5 events against mid-tier nations.
Top 20. Look down a little further and line up his 2012 PBs against their 2012 NLs.
1. (1.) United States (USA) North and Central America 57802 (57806) (44) 2. (2.) Kenya (KEN) Africa 56113 (56107) (44) 3. (3.) Great Britain & NI (GBR) Europe 53339 (53380) (44) 4. (4.) Russia (RUS) Europe 53294 (53354) (44) 5. (5.) Germany (GER) Europe 52586 (52579) (44) 6. (6.) France (FRA) Europe 52404 (52414) (44) 7. (7.) Jamaica (JAM) North and Central America 52070 (52101) (44) 8. (8.) Poland (POL) Europe 51789 (51830) (44) 9. (9.) China (CHN) Asia 51134 (51205) (44) 10. (10.) Spain (ESP) Europe 50816 (50814) (44) 11. (11.) Ukraine (UKR) Europe 50758 (50792) (44) 12. (12.) Canada (CAN) North and Central America 50702 (50733) (44) 13. (13.) Italy (ITA) Europe 50687 (50715) (44) 14. (14.) Japan (JPN) Asia 50670 (50691) (44) 15. (15.) Brazil (BRA) South America 50526 (50542) (44) 16. (16.) South Africa (RSA) Africa 50471 (50511) (44) 17. (17.) Australia (AUS) Oceania 50394 (50435) (44) 18. (18.) Cuba (CUB) North and Central America 49912 (49972) (44) 19. (19.) Czech Republic (CZE) Europe 49175 (49137) (44) 20. (20.) Netherlands (NED) Europe 48985 (49011) (44)
P.S. Not sure what their criteria are, but where is Kenya's strength EXCEPT the 800 up? The throws? The sprints? 110H? HJ? PV? TJ?
My goodness, Marlow, he would beat them, you're right!
Marlow wrote:P.S. Not sure what their criteria are, but where is Kenya's strength EXCEPT the 800 up? The throws? The sprints? 110H? HJ? PV? TJ?
Kenya had a 12th-place javelin thrower in London last year, Julius Yego. He was the first ever Kenyan field-eventer in the Olympics and was recently featured on CNN.com. He coached himself by watching throwers on YouTube!
Olli wrote:The winner of javelin was NOT Jamaican.
Yes, I should have phrased it differently, but my meaning was clear. And, I think that the broadening of Jamaican and Caribbean athletics is a good thing.
Olli wrote:The winner of javelin was NOT Jamaican.
Yes, I should have phrased it differently, but my meaning was clear. And, I think that the broadening of Jamaican and Caribbean athletics is a good thing.
Yeah,but you guys got to straighten out your geography. We're serious people here!, any of you heard of the very good African (Uganda) Javelin thrower Justin Arop? No? Goes back a bit.
1. (1.) United States (USA) North and Central America 57802 (57806) (44) 2. (2.) Kenya (KEN) Africa 56113 (56107) (44) 3. (3.) Great Britain & NI (GBR) Europe 53339 (53380) (44) 4. (4.) Russia (RUS) Europe 53294 (53354) (44) 5. (5.) Germany (GER) Europe 52586 (52579) (44) 6. (6.) France (FRA) Europe 52404 (52414) (44) 7. (7.) Jamaica (JAM) North and Central America 52070 (52101) (44) 8. (8.) Poland (POL) Europe 51789 (51830) (44) 9. (9.) China (CHN) Asia 51134 (51205) (44) 10. (10.) Spain (ESP) Europe 50816 (50814) (44)
P.S. Not sure what their criteria are, but where is Kenya's strength EXCEPT the 800 up? The throws? The sprints? 110H? HJ? PV? TJ?
The method in which this site ranked countries is somewhat bizarre.
For each performance during 2012 they assign a score that its base on the mark, the competition and the place that the athlete finished.
They divide all T&F events into 22 groups that roughly correspond to the Olympic events (i.e. the event 100m includes the outdoor 100 and 60, 55 & 50 indoor). There are no relays, but there is an event "road racing". Out of these 22 events they choose the best 44 athletes from each country while limiting the number of athletes per event to five.
Kenya has very strong 7 events (800 - marathon and road racing) which gives them 35 athletes out of the 44 with very high score. This leads to the silly ranking in which a country that has almost nothing to offer in two thirds in the events in T&F is ranked in the second place not far behind the US.
Marlow wrote:Ashton Eaton vs. an average country (better than average; there's 200 nations in the IAAF, we'll say the 50th best).
wins the 100, 400, 110H, PV, LJ ties the HJ loses the 1500, SP, DT and JT
Final score 5-4-1 Eaton.
Eaton in his best five events:
100 - Eaton was ranked in 103 place. There are 29 countries that have at least one athlete that was better than Eaton and an additional two countries that have athletes with the same time. Interestingly, only five (!) countries will leave Eaton out of their relay team (CAN, JAM, SKN, TRI, USA)
400 - Eaton was ranked in 88 place. There are 30 countries that have at least one athlete that is better than Eaton. Only six countries (BAH, GBR, JAM, RUS, TRI, USA) will not include him on their relay team.
110h - giving Eaton a little bit of slack I will include the windy 13.34. Only athletes from 12 countries have better time than Eaton. Since 13.35 is better than the “A” standard it is interesting to note that only one (!!!) country will not include him on its Olympic team.
LJ - Eaton’s best events. He is ranked 14 with only 8 countries with an athlete that jumped further than 8.23. Eaton will make the Olympic team of all the countries!!
PV - I believe that the 5.30 is a bit over estimated. The IAAF list show all 5.40+ jumps. There are 152 athletes from 32 countries that jump above 5.30, but they are likely to be few additional athletes that jumps 5.35.
Overall There are 65 countries with at least one athlete that is better than Eaton in one of his strong five events. However, 42 of these countries have just one athlete. It is likely that some of these countries do not have a 2.11 athlete to bit Eaton in the HJ (the HJ list shows only 2.20+ jump). Interestingly, only three countries will win in all five events and additional five will win in 4 out of the five events.
Last edited by olorin on Sun Feb 03, 2013 4:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
There is a selection bias in the comparisons. For instance, you are picking from among a lot of athletes on a lot of occasions (e.g., wind) versus Eaton in one or two (well a few performances). You have to select ONE person and then see how they perform, taking the marks this year (well 2012, it is not clear what the set is used for comparison).
26mi235 wrote:There is a selection bias in the comparisons. For instance, you are picking from among a lot of athletes on a lot of occasions (e.g., wind) versus Eaton in one or two (well a few performances).
But that "selection bias" is the point. It shows how good Eaton is -- in a couple decathlons and a couple one-off performances outside the decathlon he performed better than most of the best one-event specialists from so many other countries.
26mi235 wrote:There is a selection bias in the comparisons. For instance, you are picking from among a lot of athletes on a lot of occasions (e.g., wind) versus Eaton in one or two (well a few performances). You have to select ONE person and then see how they perform, taking the marks this year (well 2012, it is not clear what the set is used for comparison).
I used 2012 SBs. I did not include wind adjustment due to time constraint. However, I doubt very much that the such adjustment will change the results significantly (His 100 and LJ are likley to improve and his 110h is likely to deteriorate).
I guess you're right. According to IAAF's Olympic stats book, 19th placer Vincent Gabriel was Kenyan, but I checked the official report from those games, and they list him as Nigerian.
Anyways, one is enough to invalidate the claim about Yego being the first Kenyan field eventer in OG And there was at least one other one - Jacob Katonon competed in TJ in 1996.
I guess you're right. According to IAAF's Olympic stats book, 19th placer Vincent Gabriel was Kenyan, but I checked the official report from those games, and they list him as Nigerian.
Anyways, one is enough to invalidate the claim about Yego being the first Kenyan field eventer in OG And there was at least one other one - Jacob Katonon competed in TJ in 1996.
I think that you got it wrong again. According to the "holly wiki" Katonon didn't qualify for the final (he jumped 16.17 and was ranked 12th in his group but only 28th overall). Not really cooperative these Kenyan field athletes
26mi235 wrote:P.S. Not sure what their criteria are, but where is Kenya's strength EXCEPT the 800 up? The throws? The sprints? 110H? HJ? PV? TJ?
Jacob Katonen was a decent jumper back in the 1990s. He holds the national records for high jump (2.24m), long jump (8.12m) and triple jump (17.12m). Granted they were all altitude-aided marks but they still count as NRs.
James Sabulei also represented Kenya in the long jump at the 1992 Olympics. He also went 8m-plus (altitude-aided again) but jumped 7.99m at sea level too.
Powell wrote:Anyways, one is enough to invalidate the claim about Yego being the first Kenyan field eventer in OG And there was at least one other one - Jacob Katonon competed in TJ in 1996.
I think that you got it wrong again. According to the "holly wiki" Katonon didn't qualify for the final (he jumped 16.17 and was ranked 12th in his group but only 28th overall). Not really cooperative these Kenyan field athletes
Where did I state Katonon made the final? The original claim was that Yego was the first Kenyan ever to COMPETE in OG in a field event, so I'm giving counterexamples regardless of whether they made the final or not.
Powell wrote:Anyways, one is enough to invalidate the claim about Yego being the first Kenyan field eventer in OG And there was at least one other one - Jacob Katonon competed in TJ in 1996.
I think that you got it wrong again. According to the "holly wiki" Katonon didn't qualify for the final (he jumped 16.17 and was ranked 12th in his group but only 28th overall). Not really cooperative these Kenyan field athletes
Where did I state Katonon made the final? The original claim was that Yego was the first Kenyan ever to COMPETE in OG in a field event, so I'm giving counterexamples regardless of whether they made the final or not.
Oops me bad. For some reason I thought that we are talking about finalists . So if we examine athletes that compete in the Olympics then you can add: 1984: Men long jump - Moses Kiyai 7.51 (and another athlete that didn’t start). 1992: Men long jump - James Sabulei 7.50 & Benjamin Koech 7.44 1996: Men long jump - Remmy Limo 7.46
And there was at least one other one - Jacob Katonon competed in TJ in 1996.
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