Daley THOMPSON - Olympic Athletics | Great Britain Daley THOMPSON Daley Thompson dominated the decathlon for nearly a decade, winning two Olympic gold medals. Gold in Moscow Daley Thompson won his first Olympic gold at the 1980 Moscow Games. Four years later, he returned to defend his title in Los Angeles. In his way stood his great rival, Jürgen Hingsen of West Germany. Battle for gold For the first seven events, little separated Thompson and Hingsen as they battled for first place. But Thompson pulled away with strong performances in the pole vault and the javelin. With the gold medal secure, Thompson needed to run the final event, the 1500m, in 4:34.98 to break Hingsen's world record. Yet Thompson eased up at the finish line and stopped the clock at 4:35.00! Share of record Two years later, IAAF officials reviewed the photo timer results and discovered that Thompson had completed the 110m hurdles one hundredth of a second quicker than initially recorded. They added one more point to his Olympic total and he was given a belated share of the world record.

This record would stand for nine years, and it was only at the 2004 Athens Games that it was bettered by Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic. Dominant performer Thompson was a natural showman. But behind the cheeky grin was a will of iron. He and Hingsen may have traded world records but in the events that mattered, it was always Thompson who emerged victorious. Between 1979 and 1987, he went undefeated in all competitions. Daley Thompson causes furore at LA Olympics: From the archive, 11 August 1984: | Sport | The Guardian Share on Messenger Close Bang goes Daley Thompson's chance of a knighthood. The 25-year-old Londoner won his second successive Olympic gold medal for the decathlon in the Los Angeles Coliseum on Thursday night and spent the next half hour providing fodder for his marvellous achievement to be buried under a welter of outrage. It all started nicely with him donning a t-shirt which said 'Thanks America for a good games and a great time' on the front and on the back 'But what about the TV coverage?'.

Then he was presented to Princess Anne, president of the British Olympic Association, on the track and they chatted for a while. On the winners' podium, Thompson, awarded the MBE since winning in Moscow four years ago, was seen on the giant TV screens whistling the national anthem as the Union Jack was unfurled rather than staring wet-eyed at the flag. The next stop was a press conference. He unzipped his GB tracksuit to reveal another t-shirt, which read: 'Is the world's second greatest athlete gay?' a reference to rumours about the alleged and denied sexual preferences of Carl Lewis, the American track star. The first question, from a British tabloid journalist, concerned what the Queen's daughter said to him. He replied: 'she said I was a damn good-looking guy.' He side-stepped questions about the t-shirt by saying that in England gay meant happy. Asked who was the second greatest athlete in the world, he replied that he may be Lewis or Jurgen Hingsen, second in the decathlon. By this time the Americans were rolling in the aisles, the non-English speakers reaching for their dictionaries, and the British smelling a good story. There was more. What were his future plans?

'I am going to settle down for a while, maybe have some kids, and grow up.' A double question: 'What did you say to Princess Anne, and if you are going to have children, who is going to be the mother?' He replied: 'in answer to your second question, you have just mentioned the lady and I hope they are white.' The TV cameras were whirring, the adrenalin was still pumping, and he was a champion. Was it not unusual for Princess Anne to come on to the track? he was asked. 'Not when you are as close as we are.' Did Captain Mark Phillips know about this new romance? - 'Who's he?' It was time to go - Thompson was running in the 4 x 100 metres relay in the morning. But on the way out he did an interview for a San Diego TV station. Was this the happiest day of his life? The only British athlete regarded in America as a superstar said: 'I haven't been this happy since my grandmother caught her tit in a mangle .' It was bleeped out.

Mr Michael Shea, the Queen's press secretary, said: 'Princess Anne wants to make it quite clear that she finds it absurd that anyone should think anything said by Daley Thompson after his outstandingly brilliant achievement was offensive in any way.' Mr Charles Palmer, chairman of the British Olympic Association, said: 'His remarks are, to some extent, his way of telling the press to mind their own business.' Daley Thompson - Olympic Legend - SuperSport - Olympics Gold Biography Daley Thompson is regarded by some as the greatest decathlete of all time, having won the gold medal at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics, and broken the world record on four separate occasions. The Briton broke the world decathlon record shortly before the 1980 Games, but was denied the rivalry of his fiercest competitors, the West Germans, who supported the US boycott of Moscow. He raised the record twice more before the 1984 Games, where it appeared he had missed out on the opportunity to equal it when he slowed down in the 1500m.

However after photo-finish pictures were examined he was credited with a further point, and when the new scoring tables were introduced the following year he was duly credited with the new world record once again. Event Streaming Daley Thompson Share on Daley Thompson English Athlete Daley Thompson wins a Gold Medal in the Decathlon in Moscow. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images) Athletics,decathlon,Great Britain,Moscow 1980,THOMPSON, Daley,Men, London 2012 Olympics: Daley Thompson ignites row with Sir Steve Redgrave over Olympic flame - Telegraph Olympics News London 2012 Olympics: Daley Thompson ignites row with Sir Steve Redgrave over Olympic flame Olympic legend Daley Thompson has spoken out against rower Sir Steve Redgrave who he said was "not in the same class" as his friend Sebastian Coe. The best? Daley Thompson has sparked a row with five-time gold medallist Sir Steve Redgrave Follow The double gold medal winning decathlete implied that rowing was much easier than athletics, his own discipline. Thompson's comments come shortly after Redgrave said that the decathlete should not be considered one of Britain's top Olympians.

The pair are both considered as favourites to light the cauldron at the Olympic opening ceremony. Former runner Lord Coe, chairman of Games organisers Locog, has been pushing for his long-time friend Thompson to conduct the honours on July 27, ahead of bookmakers' favourite Redgrave. When asked about the rivalry between Lord Coe and Redgrave, Thompson said: "Why would there be rivalry? In my opinion Sebastian Coe is the second greatest Olympian, after myself. Related Articles Redgrave: the world is watching 15 Jul 2012 "Steve Redgrave is not in the same class as Seb Coe. He is a rower, but I think track and field is the toughest sport in the Olympics, which means the rewards are greater." Asked if Redgrave was an obvious choice to light the torch as a five-time gold medallist, Thompson said: ‘I don’t think so. It depends on your opinion." As for Thompson's own chances of being selected to light the flame, he said: "It would be an honour to do it. Nobody has told me that I am going to do it yet. I should be the most famous man on earth.

I don't know what the criteria for doing it is. If I know what the criteria was or who was making the decision then it would be much easier to understand." Writing in an Evening Standard article earlier in July, Redgrave said: "Obviously, Daley was a great athlete. Some people, Seb Coe included, think he’s the best athlete ever. "My personal view is that he doesn’t make the top five of great British Olympians. I’d put Seb above him, and Kelly Holmes, certainly Ben Ainslie, and, all modesty aside, myself and Matt Pinsent." "I say that because, to me, athletes compete at the decathlon if they are great all-rounders instead of being supreme in one event." Lord Coe and Thompson both won the first of their two Olympic gold medals in Moscow in 1980 – Coe in the 1,500 metres and Thompson in the decathlon. They both won gold again four years later in Los Angeles, where Redgrave won the first of his five gold medals.

Lord Coe has no direct power over who will light the cauldron but he has previously joked that Thompson should perform the lighting ‘because he is my mate’, adding: "I also do actually happen to believe he is the greatest Olympian we have delivered." Thompson said he did not think the decision would be made public before the Opening Ceremony. He also said that he did not think that footballer David Beckham would have been a choice to light the flame. He said: "I never would have chosen him because he has nothing to do with the Olympics." Daley Thompson | Sport magazine Daley Thompson Daley Thompson Double Olympic gold-medallist, chickenpox beneficiary, sports day king “I was good at athletics from day one. I started, like everybody, just running around in the playground and all that kind of stuff. I suspect it’s the first thing we all try. And I just happened to be good at it – nobody could catch me in the playground.” “The only reason I started decathlon was because one of the guys in my athletics club got chickenpox. My coach Bob [Mortimer] asked me if I would do a decathlon, and he explained what it was.

I said that I hadn’t done seven of the things before and he said: ‘Well, you’ve got three weeks.’” “I was rubbish. With running, most people have their own little bit of technique. But all the other stuff like pole vault and discus takes a long time. When you first do pole vault – I know this is stupid – somebody holds the pole on the ground, you take eight or 10 steps back. You don’t run with the pole; you run and they’re holding it. You jump on to it and they swing you over.” “I like old soul music – because I’m an old bloke! There’s a period in all of our lives, I reckon, when all we do is listen to music. I suspect mine was from 17 to about 25. I like people like Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke, The Four Tops, James Brown.” “I didn’t need anything to get revved up for a competition. I normally spent about a year getting ready. For me it was like this: you kind of start with a year to go, and you think about the championship maybe every couple of weeks.

Then, when there’s six months to go, you’re thinking about it every day. When there’s two months to go, you’re thinking about it every hour. And you think about it more and more. That’s how I got prepared.” “It was really hard when I retired. I’d spent 14 years doing athletics seven days a week. Now my life is just about making sure the kids go to school, the kids get picked up. I’m a taxi service and bank.” “Last year, I retired undefeated from parents’ races at sports day. I’m getting too old, it’s getting too hard. [But] the skills from decathlon transfer quite well – there are a lot of similarities between the pole vault and the egg and spoon race.” “My pet hate is people WHO waste time and talent. You only have so much time, and you don’t know whether it’s an hour, a day, a year, or 15 years. I see so many people just not making the best of whatever hand they’ve been dealt.” “I had 10 days off a year. I’m not much for holidays, to be honest. But I do like going where my friends are.

I like visiting Australia – I have a few good mates down there – but I’m not one for beach holidays or skiing holidays.” Laureus Sport for Good has helped improve the lives of millions of young people in more than 35 countries and is proving sport can change the world. laureus.com/realheroes 100 Great Black Britons - Daley Thompson Daley Thompson First athlete to win Olympic, World, Commonwealth and European titles and hold world record The decathlon requires proficiency in ten events - the shot put, discus and javelin throws; the long and high jumps; the pole vault; the 100 m, the 400 m and the 1500 m run and the 110 m hurdles. The winner is considered the all-round athletics champion. In 1984, a British athlete, Daley Thompson, became only the second person in Olympic history to claim the decathlon gold twice. Born on July 30th 1958 in Notting Hill, London, of Scottish and Nigerian parentage, Thompson first competed in the decathlon in the 1976 Montreal Games as an 18-year-old. He finished 18th!

Four years later at the Moscow Olympics, he won the gold medal, finishing 150 points ahead of his nearest rival. Till Thompson arrived on the scene, the decathlon was one of the least popular spectator events in athletics. Thompson changed all that with his colour and flamboyance. He made each element of the decathlon a drama in itself. He was a superb athlete, one who had dedicated his life to nothing but getting better and better in the event. The number of world-class decathletes shot up during the 'Daley decade'. A score of 8000 points was bettered over 500 times in the 1980's! In the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Thompson was at his peak. He won the gold with a total of 8797 points, equalling American Bob Mathias' achievement of two decathlon golds. A year later, the IAAF adjusted the scores and Thompson was given the world record with 8847 points.

He was a top class performer at a wide range of events, with a silver medal at 4x100m relay and sixth at pole vault at the 1986 Commonwealth Games and bronze at 4x100m at the 1986 Europeans. He was fifth at long jump and the winner of the decathlon at the 1977 European Juniors. He took national titles at the long jump, AAA in 1977 and UK in 1979.

Individual event bests: 100m 10.26 (1986), 200m 20.88 (1979), 400m 46.86 (1982), 1500m 4:20.3 (1976), 110mh 14.04 (1986), 400mh 52.14 (1986), high jump 2.14mi (1982), 2.11 (1980); pole vault 5.25m (1986), long jump 8.01m (1984), 8.11w (1978); shot 16.10m (1984), discus 49.10m (1986), javelin 65.38m (1980), new specification 64.04 (1988). Club: Newham & Essex Beagles.

He was awarded the MBE in 1982 and advanced to CBE in 2000, and was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1982. Web Links 50 stunning Olympic moments No21: Daley Thompson wins 1984 decathlon | Sport | The Guardian 50 stunning Olympic moments 50 stunning Olympic moments No21: Daley Thompson wins 1984 decathlon The Briton had won gold – and ruffled feathers – at Moscow in 1980 but that was nothing compared to LA four years later The decathlete Daley Thompson stands atop the podium with his gold medal in 1984 and his great rival, Jürgen Hingsen, on the left with his silver.

Photograph: BTS 50 stunning Olympic moments 50 stunning Olympic moments No21: Daley Thompson wins 1984 decathlon The Briton had won gold – and ruffled feathers – at Moscow in 1980 but that was nothing compared to LA four years later Wednesday 4 April 2012 04.00 EDT First published on Wednesday 4 April 2012 04.00 EDT Share on Messenger Close It starts with a shot of three red traffic lights and lingers on them for barely a second before the music begins . The multi-tracked guitars and bass intro of Iron Maiden’s Phantom of the Opera opens slowly as the double Olympic gold medallist first appears on screen. He is somewhere in the south-west of the United States of America and the intense early morning heat is captured by the fuzzy quality of the pictures. Daley Thompson causes furore at LA Olympics: From the archive, 11 August 1984: Read more The caption says it is 8am and time for Daley Thompson, who is puffing hard as he runs towards the camera, to break training for refreshment. He wipes the sweat from his face.

The lights turn amber and Thompson, now sitting in the bleachers, tosses a bottle of Lucozade in the air, opens it and begins glugging. The guitars accelerate as Thompson crouches in his starting blocks, the light goes green on the first beat of the snare drum and he blasts down the track in powerful, lithe strides, his eyes focused on the finishing line. When he crosses it, Desmond Lynam utters the strapline: “Lucozade, the refreshing glucose drink.” Since 1929 Lucozade had been marketed as an aid to recovery and was sold primarily in chemists. In its crinkly, cellophane wrapper it became a ubiquitous sight, along with bunches of grapes, on top of the bedside cabinets on hospital wards throughout the UK. When it wanted to branch out beyond its established, infirm customer base in 1985 it could have not chosen a more radiant emblem of health, vigour and intense competitive spirit than Britain’s greatest ever all-round athlete. It worked wonders for the brand but in 30 seconds it also encapsulated Thompson’s dedication and dynamism.

Everyone knew the famous story of his Christmas day training sessions to gain an edge on his rivals, which were more a sadistic psychological weapon than a masochistic trial for himself. Now here he was at 8am, in fierce, hazy heat, not beginning but breaking his training routine. In deeds more than words, though there were plenty of those too, he corroborated the judgment of his friend, Sebastian Coe. “Daley is a Stalinist,” Coe said. “It’s not enough to win; he has to mentally destroy his opponent.” “Stalinist” was one of several adjectives used to describe Thompson’s drive and character. While he was a darling to sections of Britain’s youth who serially ravaged joysticks while playing his eponymous computer game and the wider public who admired his charisma, self-belief and ribald maverick irreverence, to many members of the athletics press corps he was “arrogant”, “sarcastic”, “impertinent”, “solitary” and in the words of one famous analysis “objectionable, charmless and rude”.

The charge sheet, to some of those who covered the sport, was long – when he won gold at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton he refused to attend the traditional winners’ press conference, preferring to have dinner with his “auntie” Doreen Rayment, a family friend who had been his landlady, guardian, chauffeur and sponsor since his mother had told him four years earlier to find employment or leave home. In 1982, the year he broke the world record twice and was European and Commonwealth champion, he was castigated for refusing to carry the England team’s flag at the opening ceremony in Brisbane. There were rumours, too, that he occasionally told autograph hunters to get stuffed if he was preoccupied with training. When he won the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award at the end of that year and was given the trophy by Sir Garfield Sobers, he turned up in his usual tracksuit and said “I feel like shit” when he began his acceptance speech. Twenty years later no one would have been shocked but in 1982, swearing on prime time Sunday night television, particularly on a programme as prim as the Sports Personality of the Year, was genuinely incendiary.

But if his behaviour that night was seen as boorish and contemptuous, it was relatively piddling compared with the outrage he caused after winning his second Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles in 1984 would provoke. Thompson’s defence of his stance, the lack of civility to the press, is that he could not be bothered with them because they did not really understand the decathlon. No Briton had ever won a medal in it since the modern decathlon had been inaugurated at the 1912 Olympics until Thompson won gold at Moscow in 1980. In 1964 Great Britain did not send an athlete to Tokyo to compete in the discipline and in 1972 its best-placed competitor, Barry King, finished 15th. In 1976 in Montreal, Thompson, on the day of his 18th birthday, finished 18th but the United States’ Bruce Jenner, who broke the world record and won gold at the Games, had seen enough in the Englishman to anoint him as his most likely successor.

As a gesture of handing on the baton, Jenner took Thompson home with him to California for three weeks after the Games and told him of his potential for greatness. The build-up to the Moscow Games was overshadowed by the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan which began on New Year’s Day 1980. The US president, Jimmy Carter, announced that athletes from his country would boycott the Olympics unless the USSR withdrew its troops by 20 February and, when the deadline passed without compliance, West Germany also refused to send a team. Despite the urging of the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, that Britain should join its allies the British Olympic Association ignored her wishes. It relied instead on tokenistic opposition to the invasion – its athletes did not attend the opening ceremony and winners were feted by the Olympic flag and anthem instead of the Union Flag and God Save the Queen. The West German boycott deprived the decathlon of Guido Kratschmer’s participation. Kratschmer was the current world record holder, having overhauled Thompson’s mark in 1980, and the silver medallist at Montreal. Asked before the Games whether the West German’s absence demeaned the competition, Thompson was defiant.

“Athletes are not bothered about where their rivals come from or whether they read Das Kapital in bed,” he told the Sunday Times. “Everybody knows the dates and the Olympic champion is the best there at that time. It’s no good being 8,000 miles away and saying: ‘I would have won if I’d been there.’ Nobody remembers who wasn’t there – only who won. He’s the champion and that’s all history will be concerned about.” The scheduling of events in the two-day decathlon played to Thompson’s strengths. The first two, the 100m and long jump, were his best and day one continued with the shot, high jump and 400m. While throwing was his weakest suit, having four disciplines in which he was so adept on the first day habitually allowed him to build a significant lead that would stack up the pressure on the chasing pack. On 25 July 1980 in the Lenin Stadium, Thompson’s 10.62sec for the 100m and 8m in the long jump gave him 2,000 points from two events and a huge lead.

He then managed 15.18m in the shot, a poor 2.08m in the high jump when his personal best at that point had been 2.15m, and 48.01sec in the 400m to leave him with a midway total of 4,532 points, 254 points in front of the Soviet Union’s Yuri Kutsenko. It also put him ahead of his first day score when he broke the world record in May that year in Götzis. The first day had been cold, the second colder still and damp which ruined his chances of finding the explosive speed required for the hurdles and keeping him on course for the world record. He ran 14.47sec and after the discus led by 198 points. The pole vault and javelin cemented his lead and he jogged the 1,500m as dark descended on Moscow in 4min 49sec. The crowd in the stadium, which had saved their most enthusiastic applause for Soviet bloc athletes rather than their Western counterparts, made an exception for Thompson and favoured him with a standing ovation.

When he came out to receive his medal, he leapt up to click his heels and, while the Olympic anthem was playing after he was given gold, he conducted the small British contingent of spectators through the National Anthem that officially had been denied him by Mrs Thatcher’s sanction. It was after 2am by the time he returned to the village following the mandatory drugs test and, finding all his team-mates had turned in, went to bed. “I can celebrate for the rest of my life,” he said. “Right then after a competition, I’m too tired to bother. Two days later I feel really good about it but by then I have it in perspective. I know it’s not the greatest thing that’s ever going to happen to me. If it were, you’d never be able to pick yourself up and do it all over again next year.” Doing it all over again was precisely what he accomplished over the next four years and when he arrived in Los Angeles he was the Commonwealth, European, world and Olympic champion.

But, although he had been unbeaten in competition for six years and had twice posted world records since Moscow, West Germany’s Jürgen Hingsen had set new benchmarks in 1983 and 1984. Hingsen, at 6ft 7in, towered over Thompson but in six meetings before the LA Olympics Thompson had always prevailed regardless of Hingsen’s world records. Thompson used the West German and his compatriot Siggi Wentz as his inspiration whenever training proved gruelling. “When it’s hurting bad,” he said, “I tell myself it’s all because of the boys in Germany and by the time of the competition all I want to do is take it out on them.” He certainly took it out on them in Los Angeles but had to dig deeper than he ever had before. The temperature on the first day of the decathlon was 29C, 15C higher than the warmest day in Moscow, and the notorious Los Angeles smog descended on the stadium.

In the 100m Thompson was drawn with Hingsen and Kratschmer and after a false-start he stormed out of the blocks to win the heat in a personal best 10.44sec which earned him 944 points, 122 more than Hingsen. In the long jump he began with 7.83m, then 7.84m before registering 8.01m with his final jump, another personal best in the decathlon and 21cm further than Hingsen. It would have earned him fifth place in the individual long jump final and extended his lead to 164 points. The tall West German’s forte was in the three throwing events, the hurdles and the high jump where his height gave him a clear advantage but his 15.87m in the shot was below par for him and Thompson again recorded a personal best with 15.72m. After three events and three best ever competition performances Thompson went off to lunch.

In the afternoon Hingsen clawed back some ground in the high jump but hurt his knee in taking 77 points out of Thompson’s lead and the Londoner blazed back in the 400m to end the day with a cushion of 114 points over his rival. The following morning Hingsen won the 110m hurdles in 14.29sec but Thompson was only .05sec behind him and looked secure, 108 points ahead with four events to go. The glory of the decathlon, though, is that a lead can disappear at any time: a fall in the hurdles, a false-start disqualification in the sprints, a no-height in the pole vault or, more commonly, an opponent’s huge margin of superiority in a single event can unseat the leader. If Hingsen threw further than Thompson in the discus, the champion’s supremacy after the seventh event would still read four of the disciplines to his principal challenger’s three. But if Hingsen threw significantly further than Thompson he could muster the points to make that immaterial.

On his first throw the man in second place threw 49.8m, his longest ever in a decathlon while Thompson could manage only 37.9m. Then Hingsen excelled his ephemeral personal best with his second throw of 50.82m and Thompson struggled to exceed his first throw by centimetres. Hingsen did not make it a hat-trick of PBs so, when Thompson went into the circle for his final attempt, the scores from their second throws gave the West German 886 points and the Englishman 710 which would have made Hingsen the overall leader for the first time and by a potentially decisive 68 points. Thompson muttered to himself as he walked to the circle, swinging his arms to shake away any tension and breathing deeply. When he spins and launches the discus, his technique is hardly textbook, too close to his hips and too far from his shoulders to get the optimum distance. It was a triumph of physical power as well as willpower and, when the discus flew through the air past the 40m mark, the BBC’s commentator Ron Pickering could not contain his excitement.

“It’s a better one, it’s a better one, it’s a better one, it’s a better one,” he screamed, his pitch rising as he reached the end of his sentence much like Barry Davies did with his “Interesting, very interesting” classic. When it landed it had reached 46.56m, another personal best in competition. “It was the best and worst moment of my life,” Thompson wrote in his autobiography. “For that one moment I wasn’t interested in winning. Some people shy from the high-pressure moments. It was what I had been looking for, a culmination of all I had trained for. Just to be faced with the situation in an Olympics – the feeling was incredible. And I’d faced it and overcome the thing I’m least competent in, the discus. I really hit the shit out of that discus.” Instead of trailing he maintained a lead and, though it was down to 34 points, he would restore his comfort zone in the pole vault, clearing 5m to Hingsen’s 4.50m and back-flipping in jubilation on landing after his best effort. The lead was 152 points.

During the pole vault Hingsen had been sick and Thompson beat him again in the javelin, Pickering going for an encore with “It’s not bad, it’s not bad, it’s not bad, it’s not bad” when Thompson’s throw landed on 65.24 metres. After nine events Thompson had essentially won and, though he needed to run the 1,500m in only 4min 34.8sec, 11 sec slower than his personal best, to break the world record he treated it as something of a cakewalk, grinning as he came home in 4min 35sec. “Coming down the final straight of that 1,500m,” he said, “it [the world record] was the last thing on my mind.” He added: “All I was thinking was two down one to go” – a reference to his ambition of winning three Olympic golds. His performances in the Coliseum over two days were exemplary but what happened during the two hours after his victory was confirmed dominated the coverage. To begin with he whistled the national anthem as the Union Flag was hoisted after he was given his gold medal.

Four years earlier he had demonstrated similar insouciance but his conduct in Los Angeles divided opinion between those who thought him cheeky and others who accused him of sacrilege. He had already appeared for the medal ceremony with a slogan on his T-shirt castigating the host broadcaster’s obsession with US athletes but at the winner’s press conference he turned up with a different one which said: “Is the world’s 2nd greatest athlete gay?” Rumours about Carl Lewis’s sexuality had been rife during the Games and Thompson’s dig, playing to the gallery of the US tabloids, was crass and no one bought his excuse: “In England gay just means happy.” Thompson went on to explain his euphoria to US viewers, saying: “I haven’t been this happy since my granny caught her tit in a mangle.” When it was the turn of the British reporters, he was asked what Princess Anne, who had greeted him on the track after his victory, had said to him. “She said I’m a damn good looking guy,” Thompson replied. “That’s a joke,” he added with a wink.

He spoke about wanting to have children, which prompted a double question of whether he had anyone in mind to be the babies’ mother and to elaborate on what the Princess had said to him. “You’ve just mentioned the lady,” he said. “And the answer to the second question is she said: “I hope they’ll be white.’” The Daily Mirror’s headline the day after called Thompson “Champ Chump” and Frank McGhee, the paper’s veteran “voice of sport” took the decathlete to task. “On the victory rostrum the way Thompson whistled where so many others have wept when his anthem was played was at the worst despicable, at best unfunny. There is too much cruelty in his so-called humour. Maybe he can’t be taught how to behave but he needs to be told.” In the Observer, the Melbourne Olympics gold medallist and athletics correspondent, Chris Brasher, said Thompson “spoke to the world with a tongue of a brilliant athlete who sounded like a tinkling cymbal because he has no charity, no kindness, no grace”. Brasher had a valid point and made it well but it should not tarnish Thompson’s golden achievements.

He was a complex character, difficult and stubborn as much as he was dedicated and determined. No decathlete had a more finely attuned competitive instinct and in 1984 at Los Angeles when he needed it most he once again proved that he would peak when it counted. He may not have been as warm as he seemed but he was always as good as he looked and no one in 1984 looked better. What the Guardian said Saturday August 11 1984. Daley gold loses some polish, by John Rodda Daley Thompson’s athleticism and competitiveness are unrivalled but when he leaves the arena he runs up a points record in disaster. The British Olympic Association and Buckingham Palace have played down Thompson’s tasteless remarks about the president of the BOA, Princess Anne, made in the press conference after he had won his second Olympic decathlon gold medal. But Thompson, as he did some two years ago when he shocked millions of TV viewers in uttering a four-letter word when accepting a sports award, has smudged his reputation. He has also bewildered many people at the very moment they are extending their admiration and showing wonderment for the dedication and application he brings to his event.

Why Olympians shine under the spotlight Read more His distaste – and that is probably a mild word – for the media partly explains his conduct. He has suffered down the years so much ignorance in the reporting of his event and that distortion undoubtedly has an effect upon him. He is a perfectionist in 10 sporting disciplines and he expects, unrealistically, all those involved, be they officials or part of the media, to attempt to match him. His last lap of the final event, the 1500 metres, showed that the age when sportsmen gave their all for the gold medal are gone. He decided that he did not want to break the world record, which was there for the taking, and the fact that he missed it by just one point was just coincidence. His time of 4min 35sec for the event was 0.1 sec slower than he required, giving a points total of 8,797. The record was set by Jürgen Hingsen, his West German rival who won the silver medal, in May at Mannheim.

Thompson said afterwards that after the pole vault, the eighth event, he decided that he could not achieve his ambition of breaking the record with a score of more than 9,000 points. He won the gold by the considerable margin of 142 points and the record-breaking is left for another time. “I would like all these people to come back and watch me,” he said. It really is but another few steps towards arranging a meeting next year against his Olympic rivals in a permit meeting in the United States – that way he can ask for participation money. On the two days of his competition here there were more than 300,000 people in the stadium – how many were there specifically for the decathlon and would go to see him somewhere in California is a commercial calculation which Thompson should leave to someone else. He will earn a lot of money from that event, though soon after he walked into his press conference his commercial value and viability must have been dropping. After two Olympic golds Thompson has lost none of his enthusiasm.

He intends to compete in Seoul in 1988 but before then he will be taking a good competitive look at the new rival on the horizon, William Motti, a 20-year-old Frenchman who finished fifth with 8,266 points and who has a lot of raw edges to be worked upon over the next four years. The 203 points between Thompson and the 9,000 mark will come from a 70-metre javelin throw, which he is reaching in training, lopping a lot of seconds off the 1500 metres run – his best in a decathlon is four minutes 22 seconds – and getting his high jumping back to 2.15 metres. But in working towards those targets he must take care to preserve the rest. Thompson knows after three Olympic Games and nine years’ experience of the event how to work at that – but at 25 he still appears unable to handle his responsibilities off the track.

Question: Daley Thompson is an Olympic gold medallist in what sport?
Answer: Decathlon