A Review: Decathlon: An Outline of the Australian Coaching Program

This article was a very interesting case study as it described a macro level problem (weak multi-events in the entire country of Australia) with a solution that produced results.  Shuravetsky laid out Australia’s weaknesses and then developed a national program that selected athletes age 17-18 and trained them into the international scene.

I would like to first note the selection criteria used as this information is pertinent for recruiting purposes.  The athletes ranged from 11.4 – 11.7 in the 100 meter, 6.7 – 6.3 meters in the long jump and 1.8 to 1.9 meters in the high jump.  They also needed to have basic endurance though speed and explosiveness was the most important factor. 

Training varied as athletes progressed from the 1^st year to the 5^th year of training. 
As commonly seen the training was broken into three phases: preparation, pre-competition and competition.  These periods were designed around three week blocks of medium, hard and easy. 

During the easy weeks they tested in several areas.  These tests seemed extensive and I have not seen so many different tests before.  It is clear they wanted to collect a lot of data for their national program. 

All of the athletes had to keep training diaries were they recorded tests, training loads and performances.  This is something I would definitely force my athletes to do.  Not only does it help keep a record of progress but it keeps athletes focused on the task at hand. 

Each athlete also had a yearly plan with individual event goals and decathlon score goals.  They used actual competition scores and individual event best performances to create a realization coefficient.  Basically, you add up your decathlon score with your best performances in each event and compare it to your actual decathlon score.  If your actual score is 98% of your dream score you have performed very well and if your actual score is less than 93% of your dream score than you have performed poorly. 

Everyone who has any interest in the multi-events should read this article as there are many details I did not discuss in this post. 

-John Egan

Shuravetsky, Efim, Modern Athlete & Coach Oct2008, Vol. 46 Issue 4, p25