Quote:
Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger
Warner was already jumping well below the other front runners. He failed at 4.6m while the German in 1st overall was at 5m. The eventual gold medalist did 5.3m.
Based on my limited understanding of the points system, Warner couldn’t afford to drop that many points by clearing a lower height. Or at least not without putting himself in a position where he’d have to excel at the final two events. The Norwegian in 3rd at the time also failed to score in the pole vault.
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He got 0 points by not setting a single height. A lower height would've given him 760 pts compared to the 1004, 910, and 880 that the eventual medalists got in the event. That probably takes you out of the medals, but who knows? The Gold medalist had a 233 pt deficit with 3 events left and won by 48.
Of all the disciplines where you could conceivably earn 0 points, pole vault seems kinda tricky? Or at least not a simple one to 'play it safe' like say long jump if you've had a fault or two. In the 2023 world championships it looks like he cleared 4.50, then missed 4.60 twice before clearing it, and then eventually topping out at 4.90 (with only 1 more miss until 5.00). So it was a more aggressive strategy than back then when he nearly did the same thing.
FWIW in the last 2 events in 2023 he earned 784+760=1544
A 760 in PV would have put him at 7188; so his 2023 javelin and 1500 scores would have landed him at 8732, winning bronze by 21 pts (and 16 pts behind silver). Damn.
I hope I remember all this #### in 4 years. Decathlon is awesome.