Evan and his decathlon adventures
The decathlon is about the hardest sporting event in the world. There is a balance between speed, strength and endurance, plus the need to master ten different athletic events, stay healthy enough to train for all these disciplines and deliver personal best level performances in as many of those as possible over two days in competition. Frankly, it’s brutal. That’s probably why the Club only has one decathlete – Evan Campbell.
Evan is one of our senior athletes who has been a member of the Club since he was a small lad, and who is now aiming to reach as far as possible in his chosen event.
In this article he reflects upon his summer performance at the UK Decathlon Championships, where he finished 7th with an overall personal best score of 6877 points.
” There is always adversity in the decathlon – I’ve snapped poles, fouled out in a field events and tripped and been disqualified in hurdles to give a few examples. UK Decathlon Champs weekend I came in with an ongoing Achilles injury, which hampered my training in the lead up. That didn’t phase me too much as injuries are common for me, like most decathletes, and I was prepared to deal with the pain. However, because I’d been limited in my training, my body really struggled all weekend, and a few other injuries resurfaced. During the competition I strained my back in shot put, my hamstring in hurdles, and my groin in pole vault. Amongst events like the 100m which were down due to the shape I was in, I had to back off in hurdles and shot put, and pull out of the pole-vault at the early heights. However, I bounced back with a PB in Javelin which felt awesome and had some good events too like the Discus and 400m which were best ever inside a decathlon. My 1500 was slow but I was in so much pain at that stage that finishing felt like an achievement in itself!
It might seem bizarre that this amounted to a PB, but I’m still young and developing, and I’d made such good progress this year that this felt like a minimum expectation, which of course is massively positive. I only managed this one decathlon this season, having missed another in Germany with a previous injury, so with so much room for improvement, the right injury proofing and knowing how well I can perform under difficult circumstances, I feel overwhelmingly positive and excited for next year, where my goal is to qualify for the Commonwealth Games.
For those interested in the combined events, I would really recommend it. I’ve made it sound hard, and one’s ability to take knocks and keep moving forward is, like most processes, key to success. It is however worth it for how much fun you have. The English Schools’ combined events was what made me fall in love with athletics. There are three rounds involved – county, regional and national championships, where each county enters four athletes to compete for individual and team trophies. Since our ‘county’ is only the channel-islands for English-schools’, I always competed as an individual, but it was great none-the less. You form better friendships with your competitors than you would in other events because you spend all day together and it’s a great base for the individual events. It would be great to see some young multi-eventers come through, so if anyone wants to know more, please feel free to ask me. ”
Evan trains at the FB Fields track on Club nights, so if anyone is interested in having a chat with him, do come down and say hello.
Evan’s results in the 10 events are below.
Day 1
100m: 11.59s (15th) 734
Long Jump: 6.57m (12th) 713
Shot Put: 13.15m (6th) 676
High Jump: 1.90m (3rd) 714
400m: 51.43s (12th) 750
Day 2
110m Hurdles: 15.36s (6th) 807
Discus: 41.96m (4th) 704
Pole Vault: 3.40m (15th) 457
Javelin: 53.35m PB (4th) 638
1500: 4:53.91s (11th) 595
