Id like to propose (as I have on a previous thread) that we get rid of the 1500m and replace it with either the 3000m steeple or the marathon. That will teach these brutes to take the 10th event seriously.
by the way Jenner at 70miles per week was NOT optimally training for the deca. He must have sacrificed a great deal in the other events to have been that fit for the 1500m. Not smart at all, could have cost him gold.
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Decathlon 1500 meters?
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I do not mean to dump on Clay. He's great. But at a minimum, he could have run the 1500 he did for 1300 meters, but then run the last 200 trying to imitate Usain. That's all I ask.
As for the staggered start, yes, these are very good arguments. But I am still against it, as in effect, it puts the leader(s) at a disadvantage, as the trailing competitors get to "key" off the leaders. That's fine/fair in a 4 x 400 relay, but that Decathlon leader earned his lead, and now he has to offer the ones behind him a slight advantage ?! On a related non-track subject, it's a reason I dislike the 2-point conversion in football. The team that scores last gets to opt for 1 or 2 to their advantage, whereas the team that scored before them does not have this advantage. If you are 8 points down and score a TD with the game almost over, what a cheap way to go for 2 to get into an OT. The other team was ahead of you, but they did not have that advantage of knowing, even though they scored before you did.
I know I'm going to get torn up for stating this but I've always thought that of the track events, the steeple required one of the highest levels of athleticism...
The fact that 50' shot putters don't usually make good milers (despite being among "world's greatest athletes") won't change any time soon.
The closest solution would be to put the 1500 as event #1 to ensure good effort. As the last event, a play-it-safe strategy will usually make the most sense unless you need to come from behind or want to set a record or PR or something simliar.
Jenner at 70miles per week was NOT optimally training for the deca ...
does anyone know what a 'typical' training regimen is relative to the 1500 - for a 'typical' decath. Would seem pretty minimal with some (certainly compared with 70per wk) ... some carry over from 400m training? Anyone know of a web site that has some (event by event) stats comparing decathletes over the yrs?
Well, he said the 70M/wk was done during the off season ... not as something he would maintain from January to July.
"Keying" off competitors already happens. Going into the 1500m, everybody knows who the leading contenders are, and their support staff would have calculated that they have to beat this guy by X seconds or lose to that guy by no more than Y seconds to get a medal. So they just watch the guys they need to beat, and do their best to stay in front of or behind their targets by an appropriate margin, ignoring everybody else.
This is not complex to implement and I've been advocating this for at least 20 years and have mentioned it several times on this board. The Modern Pentathlon runs the final event - cross-country in exactly this method. What is needed is to change the 1,500 tables to a linear table. Its the only way to make the 1,500 of the decathlon interesting to the uninitiated. Pursuit races in the Winter Olympics (biathlon, cross-country) are also run in this manner.
Steve - its not a handicap race run this way. Its a time trial and not a mass start race. On the question of how to implement it, the modern pentathlon uses a light display, similar to drag racing, that tells the runners in order when they start. We can always stick with the way track & field had always done things, but the sport is dying more and more each year. It was barely on TV in the USA during the Olympics. We need to find ways to contest the events in ways that are more interesting to the general public.
How do they implement it?
I dont think that would change anything very much. The problem is that the other events demand abilities diametrically opposed to the 1500m and the marginal gain for improvement in the 1500 comes at a 9x marginal loss in ones deca score. The only solution is to either add an endurance event or two and drop a throw or jump. or make the one endurance event so freaking torturous that one could not possibly slack their way out of it. An event that would utterly exhaust (marathon) and/or risk physical harm (steeple) are options.
It ain't broke. Don't fix it. The 1500 has been around a long time. Let it be.
Or give the 1500m double or triple the weight in points.
I think the decathlon is just fine as it is. I don't really know how the point values are determined but they should be consistent for all events and leave it up to the individual to decide how much they are willing to hurt in the 1500 to win or set a record..
People who say stuff like this are ignorant and, although they may claim to be track fans, simply don't know crap about the decathlon. Clay just completely kicked all those guys butts over 9 events, and anyone who bothered to watch the whole event, as I did, saw that quite clearly. He may have gone slow in that 1500, because as mentioned above by others he's no kind of distance runner, but he was dead tired at the end precisely because he didn't "dog it" while completely dominating a field of the best athletes in the world over 2 very looong days.
so - for someone who knows (I don't), it 'seems' like the 1500 is weighted less than other events - that is, relatively speaking, one doesn't not get as many points for the effort. I.e., running a 4:30 does not 'pay off' as much as concentrating on other 9 events.
and I'm in the camp that doesn't want anything changed (except perhaps a look at that scoring table - which might be unwarranted)
Actually, the 1500m pays off with roughly the same amount of points as other events for a given level of performance. The problem is that the 1500m stands comparatively alone, and other events come in groups where training for one event has a positive effect in another. The result is that decathletes both have it easier reaching a high level in other events, and prioritize training that benefits several events at a time. (It may _seem_ that the point pay-off in the 1500m is lower, because the decathletes, on average, are further from world class marks than in other events.) It would, however, be correct to say that middle- and long-distance running has a lower weighting within the decathlon than jumps, sprints, and throws.
Bear in mind that Jenner was entirely self-coached after he left Graceland College in 1971 (and he had had only two years of track coaching there). He also trained alone. He would occasionally seek advice from other T&F athletes in San Jose, but essentially everything he accomplished, he accomplished on his own. Those 70 MPW usually included two or three sessions per week of long anaerobic intervals on the Stanford golf course. Combine it with his 400-meter repeats, and he was essentially doing the training of a national-level HS miler, on top of the strength training and all the event-specific training. He believed that a high level of base fitness would benefit him throughout the competition. But he also saw the 1500 as an ultimate hole card. He was sure that he would be unbeatable if the competition were still close after nine events, as he expected it to be in Montreal. Among his contemporaries, only Leonid Litvinenko ran it faster, and Litvinenko wasn't a serious threat for the gold. No doubt, Jenner's approach cost him points in the 100 and hurdles and LJ. However, knowing that it waited for him at the end, and that he was ready for it, gave him a sort of background level of confidence throughout. There's a lot to be said for winning the mind game by whatever means. (BTW to answer the original question, the 1960 decathlon in Rome, was dramatically decided in the 1500 when Rafer Johnson, despite an inferior PR, hung with C.K. Yang to preserve most of a 67-point lead).
great post !
jenner obviously had a completely professional approach to what was nominally an amateur sport - my respect for him goes up even more despite him already winning gold & setting a fantastic wr ( it lasted 4y & daley only improved it by 4 points - it wasn't 'til '82 when daley finally put some daylight between himself & jenner's mark )
Try http://www.decathlon2000.ee/eng/index.php Maybe not all the stats you want, but a good source.
great site Bastefar and echo Eldricks comment on great post.from PF1. Part of my interest is that I have a bro who trained for decath with hopes of 76. Never overcame the injury thing, and never learned the PV (11'6") and HJ (6'4" with a 42" vertical no less). Couldn't get his butt off the bar or master the arching. Even with those + other 'PRs' (I know you never get em all in a singles comp) his score would been right at 7800. Little bit of this and a little bit of that - and who knows.
Anyway - I have always had great respect for anyone that finished and to finish uninjured - big respect from me. The lonliness of the decathlete ... long hours alone guess it's everywhere
It is complex, since the scoring tables aren't linear. You can't say what gap (e.g.) 50 point gives you don't know the individual times before the race. 4:14.50 (850) - 4:21.77 (800): 7.27 seconds 4:21,77 (800) - 4:29.25 (750): 7.48 seconds 4:29.25 (750) - 4.36.96 (700): 7.71 seconds ... 4:44.94 (650) - 4:53.20 (600): 8.26 seconds ... So if the leader leads by 50 points, how many seconds later would you allow the second to start?
I addressed this earlier in this thread. Let me reiterate, making a few changes along the way: The non-linear tables complicate the issue. The officials have to predict the 1500 time of the leader after 9 events, and then calculate the the head start he receives on the basis of that prediction. For this to work perfectly, the officials have to predict his 1500 time accurately. Otherwise the finish order on the track is approximate, not exact. There would still be a very brief delay - the equivalent of a close 100, waiting for the photo to be read - before official results are available. How much of a distortion is likely because of the non-linear tables? Predicting the winner's finish time can normally be done within 10 or 15 seconds based on past performances. Let's say the officials predict the winner will run 4:35. The second place athlete is 169 points behind; if the leader runs 4:35, he would have to run 4:10 to catch him, so he starts 25 seconds behind. But the leader tires, and only runs 4:50. If they tie at the end, with the 2nd place athlete having run 4:25, they would have scored 778 and 619 - only a 159 point differential, so the 9-event leader would still win. The runner coming from behind would have to finish about 1.5 seconds ahead in this case to actually win the decathlon. For the great majority of cases, the finish order on the track will be the finish order in the competition. If the leader runs at his anticipated time, the order will be exact. If he runs faster, the point differential per second will be a bit higher; if he runs slower, the point differential per second will be a bit lower. In both cases, if athletes finish within a couple of seconds of each other, there will be a brief delay before official rank order is known. I believe the advantages of such a system are great at a time when we are trying to improve the presentation of meets.
Re-read my post above, dvorakfan. I noted in it that first you have to change the 1,500 table to a linear table. Then its easy to implement.
linear tables are not viable - the simple observation that a 5'20 -> 5'15 woud have same points differential as 3'30 -> 3'25 is not contemplateable if the other 9 events have non-linear scoring, it woud be absurd to have 1 event scored linearly either you change all 10 events to linear scoring or none at all ( & above example shows linear scoring is absurd - you have to reward the "law of diminishing returns" )
Eldrick is right.
Summary: There are numerous advantages of running the 1500 with a staggered starting time based on standings after 9 events. One of the main advantages is that the order of finish on the track would then be the order of finish in the decathlon in most cases. Although the non-linearity of the scoring tables - a necessity to correctly weight relative performances - requires there to be occasional exceptions, calibrating the starting times based on the expected 1500m time of the winner in the vast majority of cases will lead to the finish order in the 1500 being identical to the finish order in the decathlon. While we can imagine extreme examples, the most likely exception would be when (a) two athletes finish within 10 points of each other AND (b) the leader after 9 events runs much slower or faster than expected.
I just did some checking on all the World Championships, as well as all the OG's in that era (from 1984 onwards). In every case, following this procedure, the finish order of the 1500 for the medalists would have been the same as the finish order in the decathlon.
In those 18 competitions, the only time a medal was decided by fewer than 10 points was the 1999 WC silver, Macey against Huffins. After 9 events, Dvorak led Huffins by 112 points, and Macey by 256. A reasonable guess for Dvorak's 1500 would have been 4:35 (he had run between 4:33 and 4:37 in his previous 3 decathlons). Using that time for calibration, Huffins would have started 16.8 seconds and Macey 37 seconds after Dvorak. Macey would thus have been 20.2 seconds behind Huffins. In the actual race, he beat Huffins by 24.52 seconds. So the finish order in the 1500, holding times constant to actuals, would have been Dvorak, Macey, Huffins, the same as the medals. The 2000 OG's is perhaps the most interesting, and would have made for a fascinating 1500 with a staggered start. Huffins led after 9 events by 14 over Nool and by 54 over Sebrle. In the previous 3 years, his decathlon 1500s ranged from 4:53 (in the 99 WC) to 5:18. Given all that was on the line, a reasonable guess for his 1500 time would have been 4:55. With that calibration, Nool would begin 2.4 seconds and Sebrle 9 seconds behind. In the actual 1500, Huffins ran 4:38.71, the race of his life, but Nool ran 9 seconds faster. Sebrle ran 10 seconds faster - and what an exciting race that would have been as he tried to pass Huffins in the final straightaway. But the main point: Forget about the problems of the nonlinear tables. Very rarely will they make a difference. Using this procedure to stagger the start, the finish order in the 1500 for the last 54 OG and WC medals would have been identical to the finish order in the decathlon.
Quite frankly, I am not sure that I would trust the officials to handle something like that. Big championships are likely to pull it off (although there have been many odd screw-ups over the years), but would the average high-school meet? We might end up with different rules for different levels of competition, and possibly other complications. I also fear that too many spectators and non-experts will become thoroughly confused, should one of the exceptional races occur. IMO, the potential benefits do not out-weigh the risks.
there is also another problem with staggered starts - issue of drafting
as it is today, anyone can draft behind a faster runner ( the leader for instance ) in staggered starts, the leader has to run a 1500 leading gun-to-tape with no drafting, whereas if maybe 2nd & 3rd guys are close together & only say 3s behind leader, 3rd guy woud be at an advantage to draft behind 2nd one & kick off him in the stetch, providing both are pretty good 1500 runners, 3rd guy can get an advantage of upto 4s thru drafting, which is unfair remember, 1500wr is 3'26 - fastest solo ever run is bayi's 3'32.2 - there's a reason for this - drafting can help
clearly we can contemplate linearizing the tables, the are not that 'out of whack and rarely does one run 4:00, much less 3:30 in a decathlon so linearize it across the 4:30 region. This would raise slightly the points in the middle, while lowering them at the tails. You set it out to be done right after the 2012 Games and everyone knows the new rules. Because the scoring is so close, you still have comparability and can always easily calculate the differential -- that is you could re-norm all the previous marks with little change. It is not exactly the same as the switch to the fiberglass pole and is going to be of less impact than the switch in the Jav a few years back.
Some responses:
a) To Imaginative: I don't believe I've ever attended a high school decathlon. In any event, I surely wouldn't advocate this format being a requirement at any level, but would highly recommend allowing it on an experimental basis, working out the kinks, and then using it at major championships. It does require that officials be able to read the scoring tables! It also requires that officials be able to subtract. b) To Eldrick: The drafting argument would hold just as well against running the 4x4 the way we presently do. The runner coming from behind can draft! Oh, horrors! Race strategy other than trying to hang on to someone in front of you might determine the outcome of the race! Oh, my! Apologies for the sarcasm. But imagine this, now: I'm 15 points ahead of you going into the 1500, and we're well ahead of everyone else. Our 1500 PRs are close, and you've got a slightly better kick than me. You start 2 seconds behind me, and tuck in on my rear. What are my options? I can try to break away. I can run an uneven pace, trying to run the kick out of you. I can move out a lane and try to get you to take the lead. I can intentionally slow down the pace, knowing that to catch me in points, you have to beat me by more time the slower we go. Really, the strategy is not that different from both of us starting from scratch. But the neat thing is: It's just the two of us battling, strategy against strategy, mano a mano - and the person who crosses the finish line first most likely wins. To 26mi235: If all of the medalists in the last 25 years of major championships would have finished in the right order under this procedure, why in the world would we linearize the tables? And, frankly, the bottom line is: That's not going to happen. Just possibly the powers that be might allow an experiment running the 1500 this way, but there's no chance at all that the scoring tables for the 1500 are going to become linear.
drafting is why so many teams chop & change 2nd & 3rd behind america every global - permute any of ruskie, jama, bahamas, etc for 2nd/3rd & why bahamas ran america so close a while back as americans didn't get get big enough lead in 3 legs, allowing bahamas to draft behind ( making baha guys look better than their pbs compared to americans ) & give brown a shot against jw on anchor as for your 1500 scenario - you're screwed if similar pbs & he has a better kick, he'll save himself 3 - 4s tucking behind you whatever you do ( & you're not going to "break him" if you have similar pbs ) & his kick off you in the final bend will be a lot more accentuated than the difference in pbs suggests due to all the energy he's saved thanks to you
Re:
Interesting question.
Re: Decathlon 1500 meters?
j-a-m: Thanks for looking this up and resurrecting this thread.
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