“Competition is my life; winning is my only goal,” Daley Thompson once said of his life’s motto. If he was the greatest decathlete of his times, perhaps of our times, then he was as much a colourful, though a controversial character.
At the Los Angeles Olympics, he whistled during the National anthem and at the Brisbane Commonwealth Games he refused to carry the Union Jack. Yet, no one can question the athletics credentials of Francis Morgan Thompson.
Named by his Scottish-Nigerian parents as Adodele, an African name, he became ‘Dele’ in short and ‘Daley’ to his friends. One of the fiercest competitors in athletics, Thompson won two Olympic titles, one World Championship, one Commonwealth Games and two European titles in a tumultuous career that also included four world records.
It is his back-to-back Olympic gold medals in 1980 and 1984 that dominate his career more than all his records and other achievements. He was the undisputed champion of the ‘multis’ at his peak. Thompson went into the Moscow Olympics having set a world record that summer in Gotzis (Austria) and though his 8622 points did not last till the Olympics arrived, he was the prohibitive favourite.
In a Games boycotted by the West, Thompson did not have to face the world record holder then, Guido Kratschmer of West Germany, but the Russians were strong at home. In the end, Thompson (8495) won comfortably from a pair of Russians, Yuriy Kutsenko (8331) and Sergey Zhelanov (8135).
Los Angeles in 1984 brought an experienced Thompson in search of his second title in his third Olympics. By then his rivalry with German Jurgen Hingsen had become legendary. The two had traded world records in 1984 with the German setting three and the Briton two. Hingsen held the record of 8798 going into the Olympics, but he had never beaten Thompson in five meetings prior to the Los Angeles Games.
The German looked ready to break the jinx; Thompson had other ideas. The Briton led 4633 to 4519 on the first day. On the second, after Hingsen edged Thompson in the hurdles, the discus drew the best out of the defending champion. Hingsen had reached a near personal best of 50.82 to Thompson’s 41.24.
“It was like I went to the cliff and looked over the edge,” Thompson would say later about the discus contest. Needless to say, the man of Scottish-Nigerian parentage kept his lead with a superb 46.56 final throw.
He went on to equal his life best in pole vault (5.10); leaving Hingsen (4.50) hopelessly placed and was content to run a relaxed 1500 metres.
The eventual tally for Thompson was 8797, just one point shy of Hingsen’s world record. It was later increased by one point after the 110m hurdles photo-finish data was re-read by an expert.
Thompson’s mark was converted to 8847 points on the 1985 decathlon tables and he became the sole holder of the world record till it was bettered by American Dan O’Brien in 1992 with a tally of 8891. The current world record stands in the name of Czech Roman Sebrle at 9026 points.
K. P. Mohan
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