A national record under his belt, Tejaswin Shankar spoke during the Asian Games recently about how the decathlon was not just an event but an entire experience that tests yourself both mentally and physically. He also spoke about how the 8000-point mark was a challenge he was yet to complete.
As the only person to go far beyond that and cross the 9,000-point mark twice — and one of only three men to ever do it — Ashton Eaton makes it sound simple. “I would say ‘do another one, try again’. But that’s the truth, because you improve so much every time you do a decathlon that by the time you do another, you are so much better,” Eaton told The Hindu during an interaction on Thursday.
In town as the international brand ambassador for Sunday’s Delhi Half Marathon, Eaton explained how the decathlon was different from single events and the mindset required to excel in 10 different track & field events spread across two days.
“It takes a lot of training but more than that, it takes a mindset. I think I was able to do it because I didn’t mind going to training and wanted to get better. But you also have to deal with a situation that sometimes, you may not improve. The highest I jumped was in 2012 (2.11m) and I never got better, so that’s four years of not improving.
“But the thing about decathlon is, there are other things you can improve in. You have to be okay with never reaching your full potential in one event but overall, you can put it all together to get something. It is a game of margins — you try to keep it to a minimum or increase for yourself. It’s important to be tactically aware to push that margin,” he added.
The two-time Olympic and World indoor and outdoor champion, Eaton quit at the peak of his career in 2016, having defended his title at Rio and still only 29.
“There were a few reasons — one, I was getting interested in other things in the world and thought I was getting older, so I had to get started right away. Two, I was getting injured a lot more without knowing why, that was my body signalling to me. Also, I saw a lot of athletes I admire limp across or not finish their last race. I had a choice of doing it on my terms.”
