Ashton Eaton dominates his first full decathlon at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships
There are no two opinions about the fact that all the disciplines of athletics offer pure entertainment for spectators as well as for the participants, but it is also true that none of them match the thrill contained by decathlon competitions where each
athlete and viewer is constantly looking over the points scored by the contestants.
Decathlon is perhaps the only discipline of athletics where each and every impressive movement of the players can be measured in points. The good thing about the discipline is that today it has cherished observing a new dominator, Ashton Eaton, the American
decathlete who had been representing University of Oregon. The 23-year old athlete, Eaton, while appearing at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Eugene, lead the first day of the event for marking an impressive 4604 points.
While doing so, Eaton has marked a history for beating Bryan Clay, the Olympic champion of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the world champion of 2005’s record of 4196 points by a surprising margin of 408 points. With such a stellar performance, the young decathlete
did not see even a close match in the entire day’s competition. The runner-up, Edward Broadbent, could only finish just behind Clay’s total. Contributed with a massive 2.14m high jump, he finished the day at 4175 points.
Interestingly, whether it was the 100m run, long jump or shot put, Eaton emerged in it as if this was the discipline of his specialisation. During the entire day, not even one event hinted towards the point that the formidable young athlete was ready to
compromise over his dominance on the field. Quite expectedly, the results were not different from the predications raised by his spectators.
The fact of the matter is that with the total that has been put on the board by Eaton on the first day of the competition, it is quite evident that he is going to bag the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships title rather easily. The important question
which arises now is, whether he will maintain this formidable form and fitness in the future or not.
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