Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.
-King Gustav V of Sweden, to Jim Thorpe, winner of the first Olympic decathlon in 1912
Jenner’s flag-waving romp around Montreal’s Olympic Stadium in 1976 was the United States, last gasp of decathlon glory. No American has won since; none has even come close to taking a medal. Four years ago in Seoul, Timothy Bright turned out to be the world’s seventh greatest athlete-finishing behind two Germans, two Frenchmen, a Canadian and a Brit. “All thanks to Jimmy Carter,” says decathlon coach Mike Keller, who attributes the decline to the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. “What the hell did our boys have to work for?”
For an event that dishes out renown but once every four years, the boycott was devastating. With no seminal Olympic moments, promising American decathletes quit rather than invest four more years in one of life’s harsher regimens, and few new ones had an incentive to join the fray. At the same time, money was changing the face of track and field. Where once a pole-vaulter might have accepted the greater challenge of the decathlon, the finances of such a choice had become punitive. A decathlete might compete three times a year; a polevaulter could earn appearance money most weekends.
Still, the big problem wasn’t money; the big problem was big money. It was the big money in other sports that was claiming America’s best athletes. Who knew from Daley Thompson, Britain’s world record holder and two-time Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon? What soda does he drink, anyway.? If the world’s greatest athlete wasn’t Bo Jackson, then it surely had to be Michael Jordan.
Not so, says decathlete Dave Johnson, a man on a mission to claim that title for himself and it sport. Dave is best known as the back half of Reebok’s Dan-and-Dave tandem, whose TV-ad campaign has given that old phrase, world’s greatest athlete, new currency. “I take that notion very seriously,” says Johnson, a 6 foot-3 200-pounder who, if he were a bit faster, might have made it as a defensive back in football. “I truly believe that the guy who wins the Olympic decathlon is the best-rounded athlete in the world.”
Johnson had a plan to win the gold medal in Barcelona. Unfortunately, it was a Dan-and-Dave plan. It was Dan O’Brien, the current world champion, to whom all the experts conceded the gold. Dave, who was hampered all last year by a knee injury, was consigned to the status of pretender. “I like going to Barcelona as the underdog,” Johnson said before the Olympic trials in New Orleans. “It’s easier to sneak up on people. There’s far more pressure when you’re the No. 1 guy.” O’Brien provided ample proof of the pitfalls of being the favorite. With Dave looking on in horror, Dan failed to clear any height in the pole vault. His venue in Barcelona will be the broadcasting booth.
“I almost started crying,” says Johnson, whose comforting embrace of O’Brien was quickly incorporated in a new Reebok ad. “We’re a team. A part of me is gone, too.” Johnson’s coach, Terry Franson, was alarmed to see his own athlete so shaken. “I told him, ‘Dave, it’s up to you to do your part’,” said Franson. “‘You’ve just got to hold yourself together’.” In New Orleans’s sweltering heat, Johnson displayed the composure of a 10-year veteran with one Olympics already behind him. (Johnson finished ninth in Seoul.) In the next event, he set a personal record in the javelin. He finished with a strong 1,500 meter run, winning the trials and setting a world record for scoring on the second day.
To spectators, the decathlon looks like the supreme physical test. It consists of 10 events-100 meters, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400 meters, 110-meter hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1,500 meters spread over two days. Competitors earn points for each event. It’s an exhausting regimen. When Daley Thompson set a world record in 1982, he was the lone competitor left standing after the 1,500-and only, he said, “because there was no place left to fall down.”
Yet to a man, top decathletes say the biggest challenge is mental. “There are a lot of great athletes who could probably do the decathlon physically,” says Frank Zarnowski, track coach at Mount St. Mary’s College in Maryland and the world’s foremost scholar of the event. “But could they do it when called? The whole trick is to be able to do each event when it’s your turn to do them.” Johnson says the hardest thing was to learn how to pace himself. “It’s an emotional roller coaster,” he says. “You have to be able to stop the intensity, stop the adrenaline so that your body stays fresh.” In his early competitions, he used to pace back and forth, refusing to sit down between events. Contrast that with New Orleans, where Johnson carted around a small tent, giving him a place to rest between heats. In Barcelona there will be plenty of time for midday siestas: with an expected record field, each day of the decathlon is likely to last at least 12 hours.
Dave’s path to Barcelona-even if one believes, as he does, that God has determined his path-is an unlikely one. Born and raised in Missoula, Mont., Johnson was something of a minor-league juvenile delinquent. He did not participate in track, and the only pursuit to which he recalls being dedicated was drinking beer and carousing with his gang. “I was pretty active, but it was mostly throwing rocks at cars and running away and jumping fences,” he says. “I didn’t know I was doing it, but I guess I developed some good decathlon skills.”
Dave had moved up to stealing pizza trucks loaded with beer when his family moved to Oregon. There he became a born-again Christian, got involved in the church and, a year later in college, the decathlon. In 1984 Johnson combined what had become his two life passions at Azusa Pacific, an L.A.-area Christian college with a powerful track team. He soon broke the 8,000-point barrier and two years later won the first of his four national championships. This year, in his first meet after knee surgery, Johnson scored a career-high 8,727 points, only 120 points under the world record. “Dave’s definitely still got that wild streak, but now it’s under control,” says coach Franson. “It’s a real advantage because he’s willing to go out on the edge in competition.”
Indeed, he appears out on the edge much of the time. When Dave heads off into the foothills, accompanied only by a reporter, for some uphill sprints, he ignores his coach’s instructions to take it easy. Franson says Dave has already outlasted 10 training partners-and countless journalists. “Dave believes he’s got to maximize his talent for the Lord’s glory,” says Franson. “I know that sounds pious, but it’s what he aspires to.”
It does sound pious, and so, at times, does Dave. (Undoubtedly, NBC will play the “Chariots of Fire” theme during Johnson’s performances next week.) But while Johnson never hides his faith (he opened a session with reporters by thanking God that everyone had arrived safely), he leavens it’s effect with an engaging smile and a quick wit. Add a gold medal to his chiseled good looks and Dave knows his current roster of sponsors-Reebok, his trademark Oakley sunglasses and Hinkley & Schmitt water should expand considerably. Johnson plans to keep competing and, he hopes, “Dan-and-Daving” through the ‘96 Games in Atlanta.
While Reebok has made Dave a household first name, it’s Visa that is most responsible for America’s decathlon revival. In 1990 Visa began sponsoring the top U.S. decathletes, including Johnson and O’Brien, offering monthly stipends and performance bonuses as well as training and motivational clinics. Johnson was finally freed from his many other careers–waiter, welder, janitor, security guard-to become a full-time decathlete. “Now I don’t have to worry about money,” says Johnson, whose wife of five years, Sheri, is a nurse. “All I have to do is sweat and bleed.”
Add a few tears, and it’s another catchy slogan. And the decathlon needs slogans because it is not a great spectator sport. There is far more waiting than running and jumping. Even devotees resort to cliches like “watching paint dry.” Moreover, the performances are seldom world class by the standards of any of the 10 events. The classic decathlon joke is, find someone who can’t do one event well enough and let him do 10 not well enough. The arcane scoring minimizes head-to-head confrontations; the top competitors are often in different heats or groups, with each aiming for a point total rather than a nearby rival.
To win, a decathlete must perform well in his strongest events while being certain to score something in every event. At the U.S. trials in New Orleans, Dan O’Brien was on a world-record pace when it came time for the pole vault. He declined to jump at lower heights, preferring to wait until the bar reached 15 feet 9 inches. Then, on three attempts, he failed to clear; on his last jump he actually passed under the bar. He took a zero for the event, and lost his Olympic moment.
Zeroing is part of the game. The cause can be anything from a freak injury to very bad judgment. Another bizarre no-score came weeks before O’Brien’s, when defending Olympic gold-medalist Christian Schenk failed to make the German team. Through eight events Schenk was headed for his best score ever. Before the javelin, he took a cortisone shot for a sore elbow. The needle hit a nerve. When it came Schenk’s turn to throw, his hand was numb. He couldn’t hold on to the javelin. On his last two throws, Schenk desperately tried his other hand. Both went out of bounds. No score, no Barcelona.
If drama emerges in the decathlon, it usually comes in the last event, the 1,500-meter run. The most famous took place in the 1960 Olympics when Rafer Johnson entered the race just a handful of points ahead of Taiwan’s C.K. Yang. He leeched onto Yang’s shoulder and refused to allow him to pull away. It took Johnson’s lifetime best-by almost five seconds-to secure the gold medal.
Repeating Rafer Johnson’s achievement is every decathlete’s dream. “To see our five living gold medalists together was incredible,” said Dave Johnson after a recent Visa clinic. “I just want to be the next one standing in line.” Dave’s pal Dan once said that winning the decathlon means you’ll never have to do anything but spend the rest of your life talking about it. “The title with all its mystique does last with you forever,” says Bruce Jenner. “But it never helped my golf game.” And why would he expect it to? Everyone knows that the world’s greatest non-golfer golfer is Michael Jordan.
