#4. Daley Thompson : Another Inspiration To The Nigerian Youths

Francis Morgan Ayodélé "Daley" Thompson, CBE (born 30 July 1958), is an English former decathlete. He won the decathlon gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984, and broke the world record for the event four times.

With four world records, two Olympic gold medals, three Commonwealth titles, and wins in the World and European Championships, Thompson is considered by many to be one of the greatest decathletes of all time. Robert Chalmers described him as "the greatest all-round athlete this country [United Kingdom] has ever produced.

Thompson was born in Notting Hill, London, the second son of a Nigerian father and Scottish mother. His father was a taxi driver who was shot dead in Streatham when Thompson was about twelve. At seven years old Thompson was sent to Farney Close Boarding School, Bolney, Sussex, which he described as "a place for troubled children". Thompson's name is a contraction of Ayodele, a Yoruba word meaning "joy comes home". Thompson's first ambition was to become a professional footballer, but he later switched his interests to athletics.

1980-1986-breaking records

Thompson opened the 1980 Olympic season with a world decathlon record of 8,648 points at Götzis, Austria, in May, and followed this with a comfortable win at the Moscow Olympics. After a quiet 1981 season, he was in devastating form in 1982; back at Götzis in May, he raised the world record to 8,730 points and then in September, at the European Championships in Athens, he took the record up to 8,774 points. The following month in Brisbane, Thompson took his second Commonwealth title. In 1983, Daley won the inaugural World Championships and became the first decathlete to hold a continental title, in his case the European title, and the World and Olympic titles simultaneously. He also became by virtue of his World title, the first athlete in any athletics event to hold Olympic, World, continental and Commonwealth Games titles in a single event simultaneously.

He spent much of the summer of 1984 in California preparing for the defence of his Olympic title, with Jürgen Hingsen, the West German who had succeeded Thompson as the world record holder, expected to be a major threat. Thompson took the lead in the first event and was never headed throughout the competition, although it seemed that, by easing off in the 1,500 metres he had missed tying the world record by just one point. When the photo-finish pictures were examined, however, it was found that Thompson should have been credited with one more point in the 110 metres hurdles so he had in fact, equalled Hingsen's record. Then when the new scoring tables were introduced, Thompson became the sole record holder once more with a recalculated score of 8,847 points – a world record that stood until 1992, when it was surpassed by the American athlete Dan O'Brien with a score of 8891. His two victories in the Olympic decathlon are a feat shared only with the Americans Bob Mathias and Ashton Eaton. Thompson's 1984 performance is still the UK record.

Achievements and titles

Personal best(s)

Decathlon 8,847 points

Medal record[hide]

International athletics competitions