2009 - End of Year Reviews – COMBINED EVENTS

Monte-Carlo - Statisticians A. Lennart Julin (SWE) and Mirko Jalava (FIN) begin the first of eight ‘end of season’ event category reviews covering all Athletics disciplines, highlighting the best performances which have taken place across our sport in 2009, with the COMBINED EVENTS.

MEN's Decathlon -

"Changing of the guards" is to some extent the appropriate way to characterize the decathlon in 2009. Of course it would be completely wrong to dismiss the 29-year-old reigning Olympic champion Bryan Clay after he missed this year due to injury, but it was still very much apparent in the World Championships that the event now had been taken over by a new generation of athletes closer to 20 than 30 years of age.

Of the top-10 in Berlin only one – bronze medallist Aleksandr Pogorelov – was born before 1984 and their average age was a fraction below 24 years. Knowing that decathletes usually peak at 26 to 30 the current situation provides a tantalizing prospect for the future of the decathlon towards London 2012 and beyond.

The newly crowned World champion Trey Hardee provides a good illustration of the process. He first reached 8000 points at age 20 five years ago, surpassed 8500 last year and now at age 25 he amassed 8790 in Berlin. It won't be easy for Bryan Clay to resume the position as the No 1 US decathlete and considering the fact that most of those following behind Hardee in Berlin are younger and on similar curves of progress it won't be easy for Hardee to stay on top either.