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I'm 17 and I do the decathlon in high school. My country has a terrible sports history and doesn't have a record for half of the athletics events.

Their record for decathlon was set in 1979 and is only 6412 points. I am close to this number and I wonder: can an athlete take part in the Olympic Games for their country even while being worse than the average athlete at the Olympics?

By the time the next Olympics start I should be at around 7000 points and I want (like every other athlete) to go to the Olympics. I've seen cases of athletes put in just because the country had nobody else.

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  • Depending on the average used, half and as much as three-quarters of the actual Olympic athletes could be "worse than the average athlete". Nor is this very relevant to most (or all) qualification standards to the Olympics.
    – Nij ♦
    Commented Feb 26, 2017 at 10:04
  • Related: How can a country be eligible to participate in any sport in the Olympics?
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Feb 27, 2017 at 12:44
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    We are now in the 2024 OG in France. Have you qualified?
    – WoJ
    Commented Aug 10 at 17:43

1 Answer 1

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Entry for decathlon is by meeting qualifying standards.

In decathlon, your ability compared to the average athlete is irrelevant; what you need is to meet the fixed entry standard within a certain time period prior to the Games, for yourself.

The entry standard for the 2016 Olympic Games decathlon event was

  • a score of 8100 or greater,

  • obtained at an IAAF-approved event

  • between 1 January 2015 and 11 July 2016

This gave about 18 months of events, and qualifying ended four weeks prior to the opening ceremony.

A similar standard and qualifying period can be expected for the 2020 Olympic Games; you could need a score notably above 8000 at an IAAF event during 2019 or 2020 prior to the Games' beginning.

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    This looks like an excellent answer. Could you add some sources to cite?
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Feb 27, 2017 at 12:42
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    To add to this: In athletics, the "entry by nomination" is usually in events which can handle arbitrarily large numbers of athletes, e.g. the 100m (which has a preliminary round with dozens of athletes) or the marathon (on a road course where field-size variation of a few dozen athletes won't affect the competition). The relative size of the decathlon field, however, has a direct and significant effect on the competition schedule, and consequently entry by nomination in this event might be more difficult.
    – pjmorse
    Commented Feb 28, 2017 at 19:19
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    To be more specific about my above point: for the 2017 IAAF World Championships in London, the route you've described as "entry by nomination" specifically excepts the combined events (heptathlon/decathlon) from entry this way. Decathletes hoping to compete in London need to beat the standard. I expect this will be true of Tokyo as well. If you can get entry by nomination, it won't be in the decathlon.
    – pjmorse
    Commented Apr 25, 2017 at 18:04
  • @pjmorse I wonder why these specific sports were excluded.
    – WoJ
    Commented Aug 10 at 17:44
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    @WoJ The IOC has been trying to keep a lid on the number of athletes for ages now, but in the specific case of the decathlon and heptathlon, it's a matter of running a tight meet. The multis have strict rules about the time between events, and with several events on the track limiting competition to e.g. eight competitors at a time, too many heats (or flights of pole vaulters or high jumpers) could throw the schedule into disarray.
    – pjmorse
    Commented Aug 11 at 18:12

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