Jurgen Hingsen, the “German Hercules”
by Rob Leachman
From the “Great Rivalries of Olympic Track and Field” Series
This Series
- Daley Thompson and Jurgen Hingsen – Los Angeles 1984 – Part One
- Daley Thompson and Jurgen Hingsen – Los Angeles 1984 – Part Two
- Daley Thompson and Jurgen Hingsen – Los Angeles 1984 – Part Three
- Daley Thompson and Jurgen Hingsen – Los Angeles 1984 – Part Four
- Daley Thompson and Jurgen Hingsen – Los Angeles 1984 – Part Five
In the history of the decathlon, some of the greatest performances have been an outgrowth of intense rivalries, with athletes pushing each other to higher and higher scores. Rafer Johnson and C.K. Yang, Dan O’Brien and Tomas Dvorak, Ashton Eaton and Trey Hardee, to name just a few. But among these rivalries that helped define the event, none had more impact on decathlon performance than the one that developed in the 1980s. And as a result, the world record was increased seven times.
Compared to his greatest rival, the athlete in whose shadow he competed for a decade, Jurgen Hingsen came from a vastly different background. While Daley Thompson’s parents sent the youngster to a residential boarding school because they found him too difficult to handle, Jurgen Hingsen, by his own admission, was “spoiled” by his parents. “I’m the only child,” he explained. “I was very spoiled by my parents, my mother.” His parents were involved in and supportive of their young son’s athletic endeavors from a young age. When he was five, his father was told by his doctor to go jogging in the forest to help deal with some health issues. He naturally took young Jurgen with him. Father and son during these early years played a lot of backyard soccer. Around this time, Jurgen joined a gymnastics club with which he trained for around five years. He showed early promise as a young gymnast, and he gained a very valuable sense of balance and movement and greater flexibility that would serve him well in his track and field career. But gymnastics is not an activity geared toward tall athletes, and he soon outgrew the sport. As he recalls, “Even as a baby I was about half a head taller than the other children and very active.”
When he was ten years old, young Jurgen participated in an 800-meter forest run, which he won with ease. His parents, Heinz and Hanni Hingsen, had grown concerned about their son’s isolation and sought a way to increase his interaction with other children. They signed him with Duisburg United, the track and field club in their blue-collar town. “The idea was for him to get in with other kids because he was an only child,” explained Jurgen’s father, a city employee in their community. “I guess we only realized later we were barking up the wrong tree. The moment he started excelling, he was alone again. Friends started to drop away.” Still, Hingsen’s career in track and field had formally begun. As he continued to get taller and eventually fill out, he showed promise in a variety of disciplines, particularly in the long jump and high jump.
Throughout his career, Jurgen Hingsen had an openness to the media and seemed to relish the attention his success might bring him. This began at an early age. When he was eleven, he established a new record in winning a district age-group title in the long jump. As he describes the motivational impact of media attention from this early victory, “I still cherish the newspaper article: Ten-year-old Jurgen jumped 4.56 meters. At that time, I already suspected that if I continued to train diligently, many more articles could follow.” That’s exactly what happened, as more success and more articles soon followed.
By the time he was fourteen, the young teenager was already a lanky 6′3″. Three years later, he entered and won his first decathlon. Somewhat reminiscent of Daley Thompson’s rise in the event, the seventeen-year-old Hingsen was seventh-ranked that year in West Germany, a nation with several top decathletes and a rich tradition in the event.
Norbert Pixken, a former West German discus thrower who had become a field events coach of note, knew potential when he saw it. With his youthful athleticism and a long body that was still filling out, Pixken saw in Jurgen Hingsen the potential to become a top decathlete. He invited the seventeen-year-old to begin decathlon training with Bayer Uerdingen, one of the top track and field clubs in West Germany. The move offered a major upgrade in training environment for the budding decathlete; his club in his hometown of Duisburg didn’t even have a pole vault pit. As Hingsen later described the move, “My wages back then—five kilograms of steaks per week plus travel expenses and access to professional high jump training.” As Pixken summarized the move, Hingsen would get “the life of a professional, without the paycheck.” The benefits of the new arrangement began to accrue almost immediately, and a long-term relationship between the athlete and his coach had been forged.
The following year, Hingsen won the German youth title in the decathlon, breaking Guido Kratschmer’s youth record in the process. Reflecting on Kratschmer’s Olympic silver medal and world record, Hingsen said, “That was exactly the point at which I thought, hmmm, you might be able to do that too.”
Unlike with most decathletes, Hingsen’s training in all events was overseen and coaching was provided by one coach, Pixken, who did not allow his talented athlete to work with event specialists. Hingsen came to regret this coaching approach, believing it hindered his development over time. As he reflected years later, “My technique was not as good as Daley’s—his was excellent. I had a coach who did not let me train with specialists.”
Still, under Pixken’s supervision, Hingsen’s rise in the decathlon world was rapid. He first gained prominence in 1977 by winning a junior (U20) dual meet decathlon with the Soviet Union. That same year at the European Junior Championships, he finished third behind Thompson, who won the competition. The next year, he finished third in the West German Senior Championships, scoring a personal best of 7,966. At the European Senior Championships in 1978 in Prague, where Thompson finished a devastating, for him, second, Hingsen finished thirteenth.
Both European and both rising stars, the two young decathletes continued to meet in major competitions. At the 1980 international meeting in Gotzis, the meet in which Daley Thompson set his first world record (8,622), Hingsen finished third with a personal best of 8,276. He was unable to compete in Moscow in 1980 due to the boycott, but a year later, he won the decathlon in a dual meet with the Soviets in Leningrad.
As the athletes gathered in Gotzis for the 1982 Hypo-Meeting, Jurgen Hingsen’s personal best was 8,409, a prodigious performance but still over 200 points less than Daley Thompson’s world record. To many, though, the young West German, still just twenty-four years old, was considered the next great decathlete, the rare athlete with the talent and physical ability to challenge Daley Thompson.
“Oh Yeah, I Was Worried by Him.”
By Daley Thompson’s recollection, he and Jurgen Hingsen first met on a bus traveling to a meet in Bremen, Germany in 1976. Both were still teenagers (Hingsen is six months older than Thompson), and the up-and-coming Brit was struck by the appearance of his soon-to-be-rival from West Germany. “I remember going back to my coach (Bob Mortimer) and telling him that I had met another decathlete and he was really big. He was 6-7. Well, he still is. Oh yeah, I was worried by him.”
In the ensuing years, they had met in several decathlon competitions, with Thompson always besting his counterpart. Most significantly, in the 1980 decathlon in Gotzis, Hingsen finished third, almost 350 points behind Thompson’s world record performance. In their prior meetings, that was as close as the West German had come to the Olympic champion.
But with his size and obvious talent, Jurgen Hingsen was a decathlete on the rise. In the Track and Field News Annual Rankings, Hingsen achieved his first appearance in 1979, ranking ninth. The following year, he improved to third. And by 1981, with Daley Thompson largely missing from decathlon wars, Hingsen had risen to second.
Thompson’s Second World Record
Though it had been a full season since he had finished a multi-event competition, Daley Thompson in 1982 was at the top of the decathlon world. He was the defending Olympic champion, and with Guido Kratschmer past his competitive peak and Jurgen Hingsen still ascending, Thompson was unquestionably the best decathlete in the world. All that was missing from his competitive resume, at least at the time, was the world record. He hoped to change that at Gotzis.
The picturesque Austrian village had developed a reputation as a decathlon mecca, and the uncharacteristically large crowd that gathered for the 1982 competition was well-versed in the lore of the event. Daley Thompson had spent much of the winter training in Southern California with Pan Zeniou, who would be competing in Gotzis. Many in the crowd had been present two years earlier when Thompson had set the world record, the mark that was surpassed by Kratschmer just twenty-seven days later; they hoped Thompson would regain that record in this major international competition.
For his part, the defending gold medalist did little to quell expectations, suggesting that he hoped to regain the world record. About Gotzis, he commented, “Why do I come here? Well, I set the short-lived world record here two years ago, and the people are wonderful.” Then he deadpanned, “Also, it’s the only decathlon invitation I ever get.” British national coach, Ron Pickering, was bolder in his prediction. “Watch out for Daley at Gotzis. He wants the first 9,000 there.”
With his personal best now up to 8,407, Hingsen came to Gotzis with a confident mindset. He also had Daley Thompson’s respect . . . to a point. As Thompson predicted, “I think this is going to be a great, great decathlon. Hingsen could break the record and get second.” The West German wouldn’t set a world record in this competition, but like in so many meetings between the two athletes, he finished second to his British rival. As Hingsen prepared to return home, he commented, “I said that Daley was unbeatable right now and it looks like he might be.”
Jurgen Hingsen, however, made Thompson work for the win, and the record.
Thompson credited his three months of training in San Diego for the early season speed he demonstrated in Gotzis, an advantage Hingsen suggested was “worth 200 points to him.” In the 100 to begin the competition, Thompson blasted out of the blocks to a stellar 10.49, just .04 seconds off his personal best. Hingsen, all 6-7 and 225 of him, has his own type of speed and quickness, but with his size, he could never match Thompson in a sprint event. Still, his 10.95 was a personal best, though it gave him a 118-point deficit that would be challenging to overcome.
The next three events, however, were strong ones for Hingsen. Thompson was one of Britain’s best long jumpers and on his first attempt, he spanned an impressive 25-11½. Then Hingsen, with a strong background in the jumping events, bested Thompson’s opener by a quarter inch, his second personal best. Thompson had originally planned on taking just one jump to reduce the chance of injury, but Hingsen’s jump had motivated him. “I’ve got a big one in me, 26-9 or so,” he told Ron Pickering. “Two more jumps won’t kill me.”
On his next attempt, which reached 26-1, he felt a stinging pain in his lower back. As Pickering later described the event, “He went gray it hurt him so much. He came to me and said, ‘I’ve done my back. What can I do?’” Pickering called for the physiotherapist, and Thompson made them swear not to tell anyone that he was injured. “. . . the physiotherapist put a towel around his chest. I put a towel around his feet. And we laid him out and pulled with all we had. He wouldn’t take one painkiller. . . He can take pain like no one I’ve ever seen.” Thompson missed no attempts in any event, and no one outside his inner circle knew at the time he was injured.
Still, Hingsen’s strong performance continued as well. In the shot put, Thompson exploded to a personal best of 50-2¾. He was now 112 points better than his world record performance, and forty-five points better than Kratschmer’s. Still, for the first time since becoming the dominant decathlete in the world, he wasn’t running away with the competition. Using his size to his advantage, Hingsen reached 52-4, surpassing Thompson by more than two feet.
Then in the high jump, which Thompson believed would be the real test of his sore back, the top two decathletes in the world battled back and forth as the bar was raised in one-and-a-quarter-inch increments. Both cleared 6-10 on the first try and then the bar was set at 6-11. Both missed on their first two attempts and then Hingsen barely but cleanly cleared the bar. Thompson, who had a personal best of more than seven feet, quickly readied himself for his last attempt at the height. He missed, but Hingsen could go no higher. He had bested his rival but could only cut into the lead by twenty-five points.
Despite his injury and some stellar performances, and though he was on world record pace, what some had considered Thompson’s insurmountable lead after the first event was now down to sixty-two points.
As talented as Daley Thompson was as a decathlete, he was perhaps an even stronger competitor. And Hingsen’s tenacious performance, and his inability to parlay his world record-pace performance into greater distance between himself and the West German, provided Thompson with a needed spark. The weather in Gotzis had been pleasant all day but then turned cool and windy as athletes lined up for the 400, the last event of the day. With twenty-six decathletes in the competition, the athletes were divided into several heats of the 400, with Thompson and Hingsen in the last one. A largely self-coached student of the decathlon, Thompson watched how athletes in the initial heats handled the headwind that tired so many competitors in the first 100 meters of the race. As Thompson reflected later, “I was unsure how to run.” Then he watched his British teammate, Colin Boreham, lower his personal best in those difficult conditions. “Colin had run a personal best, despite that wind . . . shown it could be done. I couldn’t let him down. Couldn’t let myself down.”
Thompson had at one time been a much better 400-meter runner but had lost some of his long sprint speed as he focused on improving his weaker events, most notably the throws and pole vault. He had not broken forty-eight seconds in a decathlon 400 in four years, but he told an acquaintance, “I’m going for it. It’s crack forty-seven or die for that guy.”
As the athletes lined up for the last race of the day, Hingsen was in lane two where he could keep an eye on Thompson in lane three. Anticipating the headwind, the Brit powered out of the blocks and pushed through the first 100; “I think I overcompensated for the wind,” Thompson said afterward. By the 200-meter mark, which he reached in a torrid 21.5, Thompson had separated himself from the rest of the field, including Hingsen. “I tried to go even faster, but I couldn’t,” Thompson said. Still, he finished in 46.86, the fastest time of his career.
Despite the conditions, Jurgen Hingsen finished in 47.86, a personal best by a full second. But in a testament to Thompson’s competitive strength, the West German improved his PR by a second yet still finished a second behind his rival. Hingsen had scored three personal bests and finished the first day with a total of 4,520, easily the best of his career.
Thompson reached the halfway point 112 points ahead of Hingsen with 4,632, the best first-day total in the history of the event. He entered the second day 172 points ahead of Guido Kratschmer’s world record first-day total.
Reflecting on his performance, Thompson quoted Bill Toomey, the American who won the 1968 Olympic decathlon in Mexico City. “He told me once, ‘You get ‘em all in the 100, and to make sure they know you mean business, you get ‘em again in the 400,’ Thompson happily recalled. “I meant business, didn’t I?”
Thompson seemed less interested in his standing relative to the world record and more enthused about his rather one-sided clash with Hingsen. The previous day, as the West German rested in a lawn chair after completing the 400, Thompson had commented, “He’s (Hingsen) got a best of 14.2 in the 110-meter hurdles. If I get him in that one, it will put him back in his lawn chair. I think this is going to be a great, great decathlon.”
The Gotzis sunshine was in full force as the decathletes lined up for the 110-meter hurdles to begin the second day, though the clouds and stubborn winds would return before the day concluded. Thompson extended his lead with another personal best, clocking 14.31 to Hingsen’s 14.52. “Went well,” Thompson reflected afterward as he privately considered the possibility that the first 9,000-point score was now possible.
In the discus, Thompson threw 145-6, better than he had thrown here two years earlier when he set the world record. As he tried to continue pressuring his surging rival, Hingsen reached a decathlon best of 147-8 but could barely dent Thompson’s lead. Increasingly, the question became not whether Thompson would win, but rather whether he would break the world record and by how much. To knowledgeable fans of the event, the question of the first 9,000-point performance was still in play. Ron Pickering commented at the time, “The pole vault will be the key.”
Thompson’s march to the world record continued in the pole vault, where he battled headwinds before clearing a decathlon best of 16-1 on the third attempt, more than a foot beyond Hingsen’s best of the day. Heading into the javelin, he was 175 points ahead of Kratschmer’s world record pace after eight events.
Any waning hopes of reaching 9,000 points were dashed in the javelin, as rain and strong side winds tamped down distances of almost all of the competitors. Thompson reached 198-7, nearly sixteen feet under the distance he had thrown in setting the world record here in 1980. Hingsen struggled even more with the wind and reached 190-7.
Thompson was circumspect afterward about the impact of the subpar javelin performance on his overall score. “I’ve never, ever, added up all my best marks to see what the point total would be,” he reflected. “That only gives you false hope, because you have to do them all in one meet. The javelin was a case in point.”
The world record was still within reach, but it had been a long day. Through only nine events, Thompson had amassed 8,122 points, in the 1980’s a solid score for all ten events. He was 225 points ahead of the second-place Hingsen who was on the verge of completing the best decathlon of his career, thus far. So, barring injury or catastrophe, Thompson was assured of the win.
But he still had higher aspirations and would need to run the 1,500 in 4:39.4 to break Guido Kratscher’s two-year-old record. Thompson’s personal best in the event was 4:20, but that had occurred six years earlier when he was a beginning decathlete. In that time, Thompson had improved in each of the events in the decathlon . . . except the 1,500.
As Gotzis had solidified its status as a multi-event hotbed, the fans had become more knowledgeable. And on this spring night in 1982, the larger than usual crowd knew a special moment was in the offing. Despite the increasing rain, the crowd seemed to grow and become more excited. And Thompson did his best to reward their enthusiasm. Through 400 meters, he was on 4:16 pace, which would have been over nine seconds faster than his own world-record performance. But at around the 600 mark, he slowed considerably, and that slower pace continued for two more laps. As Thompson reflected, “The mind was willing, but the body spoke otherwise.” Without a strong acceleration, he would not reclaim the record.
Then on the last backstretch, with the crowd cheering loudly, Thompson mustered a quicker pace and continued through the tape, clocking 4:30.55. With an impressive 8,707 points, he had broken Kratschmer’s record by fifty-eight points. As so many of the other decathletes collapsed after crossing the finish line, Thompson remained standing, though he, too, was exhausted. As he later commented, “He was a liar, whoever coined that line about victory not making you feel tired. I’ve got burning feet, a wrecked back, and a sore bum.” And a world record.
As he recovered, Thompson was more reflective than exuberant. “This sort of score has kind of been in me for a couple of years, so it’s more of a relief than a triumph to get it out.” As he continued, “I don’t feel a conqueror because you never conquer this thing, although I’m happy to have Hollywood Hingsen in second. But I feel more a survivor, yes, to fight another day.”
“Hollywood Hingsen,” as Thompson had begun to call his rising rival, had finished the 1,500 in a very solid 4:23.87 to increase his personal best by a significant 122 points, to 8,529, the sixth-best performance in the history of the event. He still lost to Thompson by 178 points. As with numerous previous occasions after finishing second to his rival, Hingsen was left to wonder “what if?”, stating, “A little more luck in the javelin, or the pole vault. . .” He would have to wait less than three months to place his first indelible mark on the decathlon event, beginning an impressive back-and-forth exchange of the world record with Daley Thompson.
Hingsen’s First World Record
By 1982, West Germany was becoming a decathlon powerhouse, with rising star, Siegfried Wentz, and Guido Kratschmer, the former world record holder in the twilight of his career but still a formidable talent. And then there was Jurgen Hingsen, a huge talent who had pushed Daley Thompson to the world record in Gotzis earlier in the year. All of these world-class athletes met in mid-August in the city of Ulm at the West German Multi-Event Championships.
Given the personal best decathlon total he had achieved three months earlier, there was heightened interest in Hingsen’s performance at this meet and the possibility that he might threaten Thompson’s new world mark. That interest was well-placed, though at only one point through the first nine events would the West German find himself ahead of Thompson’s world record pace.
Hingsen opened the competition with a 10.74 time in the 100 that was wind-aided but still legal for a decathlon. Though a strong performance for the West German, it immediately put him sixty-six points behind his rival’s world-record pace. That trend continued in the long jump, where Hingsen’s solid 25-9¾ increased his deficit to his absent and unseen opponent to eighty-six points. In the shot put, an obvious strength, Hingsen reached 52-6 to reduce his deficit to Thompson’s record pace by forty points.
Using his 6-7 frame to his advantage, he cleared 7-½ to eke ahead of Thompson’s record pace by twelve points. But in the final event of the first day, the 400 in which Daley Thompson had blasted through poor conditions to a personal best at Gotzis, Hingsen ran a solid, for him, 47.65 but lost forty points to the world record-holder and ended his day twenty-eight points behind Thompson’s record pace. Jurgen Hingsen’s first-day total of 4,604 was the second-best of all time, surpassed only by Thompson’s 4,632 when he set the record.
Throughout his career, Jurgen Hingsen occasionally suffered from issues with his back and legs, especially his knees. As the second day of the West German Decathlon Championships began, the latter condition was giving him difficulties. “My right leg bothered me all day, especially at the start of the hurdles.” Then, he false-started twice in his hurdles heat; one more false start and he would have been disqualified in the event, effectively ending any chance at winning the national title. He did start legally, but his 14.64 was over a tenth slower than he had clocked in his PR at Gotzis and a half second slower than Thompson’s time in the same competition. He was now sixty-six points behind the world record. His 147-4 discus throw reduced that deficit by a scant eleven points. When his 15-1 vault trailed Thompson’s Gotzis performance by nearly a foot, Hingsen was now down 126 points from world-record pace. While a world record was not out of reach, Hingsen needed to make a move with the javelin to put him within striking distance in the 1,500. His 207-0 throw did just that, barely, putting him within ninety-four points of Thompson.
Hingsen’s decathlon personal best in the 1,500 was 4:12.3 from three years earlier. But especially with his leg still bothering him, running under the 4:17.2 needed to break the world record seemed particularly daunting. Proving that Daley Thompson wasn’t the only decathlete with competitive mettle, Hingsen rose to the challenge and clocked a stellar 4:15.13. With that, the twenty-four-year-old had broken the world record by sixteen points, scoring 8,723 points.
Commenting afterward regarding his record performance, Hingsen was already thinking ahead to the European Championships scheduled in less than a month. “The important thing for me is to be in perfect condition for Athens, but Thompson must still be considered the favorite. He has competed in two Olympics and has much more experience in high-level competition.”
When he learned about Hingsen’s performance, the second time he had held the world record for a short time, Thompson commented, “I’m truly happy for him. Now he’s the favorite. Me, I like being the outsider.” For his part, Hingsen was skeptical of his rival’s magnanimity. “Daley was out fishing when he heard I got his record,” he joked. “At once he threw all his fishing stuff into the river and got to the track to start training. He keeps saying to me that to win is all, and records don’t matter. He tells you that, but I know what he thinks deep inside.”
With this trading of world records between two of the best decathletes in the history of the event, a budding rivalry intensified. And like Thompson before him, Jurgen Hingsen’s holding of the world record would be short-lived.
Daley Thompson had developed a well-deserved reputation as an outgoing and exuberant athlete, one known for his jocularity at competitions. But by 1982, the gold medalist had grown weary of the spotlight that accompanied being the greatest athlete in the world. Jurgen Hingsen, on the other hand, was relishing his growing rivalry with Thompson and the notoriety it provided. He believed the spotlight being shined on him and his rival should glow even brighter. “Daley and I are the kings of athletics,” Hingsen offered before the 1982 European Championships. “But the media don’t give us the space we deserve. I’d like to change that.”
“The Greatest Decathlon Competition of All Time”
Decathlons are typically exhausting, and only a short time had elapsed since his world record performance in the West German championships when he lined up for the European Championship meet. In response to concerns about such a short turnaround, Hingsen said, “I’m in good shape and although people say that two decathlons in such a short time is madness, I consider it the best possible training.” When asked for his assessment of Daley Thompson, the West German said he thought the Olympic champion was a great competitor, but added, “I think I am better and will improve even more.”
For his part in the runup to the European Championships, Thompson was more focused on regaining his world record. “I can only hope that he (Hingsen) suffers what I suffered,” the now former world record holder commented, “holding a world record for just three weeks.”
As the decathletes gathered for day one of the European Championship decathlon in early September, the Athens sky was smoggy and the sun was broiling, with the temperature destined to reach 100. The field was loaded with past and future Olympic medalists, including Guido Kratschmer and Siegfried Wentz of West Germany, and Thorsten Voss of East Germany. But this was billed as a showdown between the former and current world record holder, and Hingsen and especially Thompson would not disappoint.
In the 100, Thompson exploded to a 10.51 clocking, just a few hundredths off his best and a half-second faster than his rival. After just one event, he had opened a 128-point gap over Hingsen. But just a few strides out of the blocks, Thompson had strained his calf muscle. To a lesser athlete, the completion of the ten events, much less a world record, might have been put into jeopardy.
In the long jump, Thompson overcame that calf strain as he sailed a solid 25-7¼. Hingsen could only reach 24-10½, nearly a foot under his world record performance of three weeks earlier. Thompson’s lead over his rival had expanded to 171. Then in the shot put, typically an opportunity for Hingsen to make up ground, the West German threw a subpar 50-11, almost a foot-and-a-half under his world record effort. Thompson reached a decathlon personal best of 50-8 to lose a mere four points to his rival.
After a break of nearly three hours, Thompson jumped 6-8 and then watched as Hingsen continued on, ultimately clearing 7-½ to cut the Brit’s lead to only sixty-six points. Then, at the end of a long, hot day, Thompson ran a solid 47.11 in the 400 to surpass Hingsen by nearly a full second.
The day had been a showcase for the two superstars, one of whom won four of the five events despite never going head-to-head in the same heat or flight. Thompson led Hingsen by 114 points but in the process had fallen eighty points behind his first-day score when he had set the world record in Gotzis earlier in the year. Hingsen trailed his own world record pace by a more formidable 169 points. As Thompson assessed his performance after the first day, “I was well pleased with the first day’s work and although any chance of the world record is out of the question, I’m confident I can keep it up and win the gold.”
To open the second day of what Track and Field News publisher Cordner Nelson called “the greatest decathlon competition of all time,” Thompson ran the hurdles in 14.39 to best Hingson’s 14.61, adding twenty-five points to his lead. Then came the discus.
After the first two rounds, Hingsen had reached 145-6, a solid effort, while Thompson had struggled to reach only 130-8. Heading into their last discus throws, Hingsen was poised to cut his rival’s lead to forty-four points. Then Thompson entered the ring for his last attempt knowing that without a solid effort, the tenor of the competition would drastically change. Under circumstances eerily similar to what the world would witness two years later in Los Angeles, Thompson spun and reached a decathlon best of 149-2. With this clutch performance, which actually surpassed that of Hingsen, Thompson had extended his lead to 152. The competition for the European title was effectively over, and after the first event in which he had exceeded his record-breaking performance at Gotzis earlier in the year, the world record was back in play. As Thompson commented, “I figured I would beat the record. But that was superfluous; in a championship, winning must come first.” The race for the title was largely concluded, but regaining the record would be a struggle.
Hingsen rallied in the pole vault, raising his personal best to 15-9. But Thompson responded with a 16-4¾ clearance that was four inches higher than his mark in Gotzis. He was now within forty-five points of his world record point total after eight events.
Then came the javelin, and in a virtual replay of the discus event, Thompson came close to losing any chance at a world record. He fouled on his first attempt then slipped on his second, reaching a subpar 194-4. As he would demonstrate time and again through his career, Daley Thompson thrived in clutch situations, where his back was against the proverbial wall and he had to dig down and produce a high-level performance. And he typically did so with an outwardly calm demeanor and often with a smile on his face.
Needing a clutch throw, Thompson changed into shoes with longer spikes to prevent him from slipping. He ran down the runway, launched the spear, and watched as it landed 208-6 feet away. He had thrown ten feet farther than when he had set the record earlier in the year.
Having vanquished Hingsen, he needed to run 4:26.5 in the 1,500 to break his rival’s record. Despite the evening hour when the decathlon concluded, the Athens stadium was still hot, punishing the athletes at the end of two grueling days. Thompson followed a deliberate pace through the first part of the race, and heading into the last lap, he was five seconds behind the pace needed to break the world record. The crowd was cheering loudly, and as Thompson started the final lap, Guido Kratschmer passed him and urged him to pick up the pace. As Thompson recalled that interaction, he said, “He (Kratschmer) passed me going into the turn and said, ‘Let’s pick it up. Pick it up!’ I glanced at him and he looked terrible. If he could look that bad and still wanted to run, I guess I could too. So we ran together.” Thompson ran a 63.7 final lap to clock 4:23.71, a gallant effort under trying circumstances. Exhausted and wilted in the Greek heat, most of the athletes collapsed to the track after crossing the line. Except for Daley Thompson. When noted decathlon guru, Frank Zarnowski, asked, “When you arrived at the finish line, why didn’t you collapse like everyone else?” Thompson responded, only partly in jest, “There were bodies everywhere. I wanted to but couldn’t find room to lie down.”
Thompson’s score of 8,743 surpassed Hingsen’s record by twenty points. In second was Hingsen with 8,517 points. He battled valiantly but could not approach his world record performance from earlier in the year, trailing that personal best by over 200 points. He outperformed Thompson’s performance in only the long jump and 1,500.
With his silver medal at the European Championships, Jurgen Hingsen’s 1982 season came to an end. Four weeks after winning that competition, Daley Thompson traveled to Brisbane, Australia for the Commonwealth Games. With no significant competition, and having a happy time in the process, Thompson won another title with a pedestrian score, for him, of 8,410, besting the second-place athlete by over 400 points. Perhaps the most noteworthy event in his trip Down Under was his refusal to carry the British flag during the three-hour opening ceremony. It ruffled feathers among British track officials, but Thompson was steadfast in expressing the rationale for his decision. “My reason for coming 10,000 miles is to compete; nothing can interfere with that.”
In the Track and Field News annual rankings for 1982, Thompson returned to the top spot he had last achieved in 1980. In the magazine’s “Athlete of the Year” ratings across all men’s events, he was voted by the panel as the second-best athlete in the world for 1982 behind Carl Lewis.
For the first time in the modern era of the decathlon, considered by most authorities to date back to 1911, the world record in the event had been broken three times in a calendar year. Over the next two years, that mark would pinball back and forth between these two rivals.
With the inaugural World Championship meet scheduled for the coming season, both athletes made plans to spend much of the coming winter training in California, Thompson back in San Diego, and Hingsen in Santa Barbara. The selection of a training location just outside of Los Angeles lent further credence to Thompson’s less than complimentary nickname for his rival of “Hollywood Hingsen.”
With the sequential increase of the world record, decathlon enthusiasts inevitably turned their attention to the eventual reaching of a milestone mark in the event. Like the four-minute mile, the ten-second 100-meter dash, the seven-foot high jump, the seventy-foot shot put, and so many more, the 9,000-point decathlon performance, once considered outlandish, had seemingly become virtually inevitable.
Daley Thompson commented regarding what he believed it would take to reach such a mark. “On a perfect day, 9,000 is possible for a lot of people. They would do things they couldn’t dream of, on a perfect day when everything comes together for them,” he said. “Nine thousand for me? Most people would have no idea what that means. Personally, I think it equates to a 3:45 mile and nobody can do that yet, so you get the idea what is needed to do it in a decathlon. Sure, I am capable of doing it given the conditions and then it will be enough for me that the people in my event will appreciate what it means . . .” Thompson expanded on those sentiments later that year. “For me, success is a matter of setting goals and trying to achieve them,” he said. “The goal is not necessarily to be the first man to break 9,000 points. If I’m not the first, I’d still like to think the sun would come up the next morning. The goal is to keep winning. Scores show you whether you are progressing, but competing against—and beating other people—is the true measure of the athlete.”
Hingsen’s ponderings about the potential for reaching 9,000 points were more personal but also included consideration of his rivalry with Daley Thompson. “I’ve been adding to my points continuously,” he offered. “I have the potential for 9,000. Thompson has leveled out.”
Neither athlete would reach 9,000 points in his career, but statements like this one simply added fuel to the rivalry.
Before 1983, the only “world champions” in track and field were crowned every four years at the Olympic Games. In that year, though, the IAAF conducted the inaugural World Championships in Helsinki, Finland, and suddenly athletes had another opportunity to win a world title. Through 1991, this major international meet was held in the year before the Summer Olympics. Beginning in 1993, the championships moved to a biennial schedule, with competitions in all events conducted the year before and the year after each Summer Games. The World Championships quickly grew in popularity, and the prestige of a medal in this more frequent competition soon approached that of those won in the Olympics. And unlike in the Summer Games, with countless sports vying for attention, the World Championships would have no such competition.
For top athletes like Daley Thompson and Jurgen Hingsen, the advent of the World Championships represented a wrinkle in the planning process as they planned out multi-year training cycles. Before, it was common for athletes, particularly in the era before amateurism standards began to be softened, to compete minimally in the year after an Olympics and to train especially heavily in the year before an Olympics. Though in their infancy the World Championships lacked the prestige they would soon attain, in 1983 another world title was suddenly available, and athletes and their coaches had to adjust training cycles accordingly.
In the runup to the inaugural World Championships, the experiences of Daley Thompson and Jurgen Hingsen were distinctly different. Both were back in California to get away from inhospitable winter conditions back home. But for Hingsen, he was back in Santa Barbara where the previous year he had found his bride.
After a tough day of training, Hingsen had donned cowboy boots and a cowboy hat and traveled the short distance to a disco in Santa Barbara. There he met Jeannie Pursell, the daughter of a track coach who had idolized Bruce Jenner back in the day. As she recalls that evening in March of 1982, “My Rhine cowboy had the bluest eyes in the world. The next day I went to the UCSB track, hid in the bushes and watched his workout. He was jumping hurdles, without a shirt. It was the most magnificent sight I’d ever seen.”
When Hingsen returned to Germany, Jeannie traveled with him. Later that year they were married in a church in Dusseldorf. In addition to the seventy or so people who were invited, more than 1,500 showed up to get a peak at the celebrity couple. With one world record already and the obvious potential for more, Jurgen Hingsen was becoming one of the more popular personalities in West Germany.
Hingsen’s Second World Record
Jurgen and his new bride traveled back to Santa Barbara in the winter of 1983 then returned to Germany for his final preparations for the West German multi-event championships. Conducted in the city of Bernhausen, this competition would serve as the selection meet to determine who would represent West Germany in the World Championships. For two days in early June in a small stadium in the southern part of the country, four athletes battled for the three spots on West Germany’s world championship team. Demonstrating the degree to which the nation had become a decathlon powerhouse, Andreas Rizzi scored a personal best 8,367, a stellar score in 1983, and finished fourth and off the team. Scoring 8,456 and finishing third was the thirty-year-old Guido Kratschmer, the former world record holder and Olympic silver medalist, demonstrating he was still one of the top decathletes in the world.
But this competition belonged to Jurgen Hingsen, though rising star Siegfried Wentz battled him to the end. A crowd of around 4,000 jammed into the stadium in a setting that was not new to top-level decathlons; Guido Kratschmer had broken the European Record here in 1978 and the world record in 1980.
Hingsen was hot from the start, sprinting a personal best of 10.92 in the 100 and reaching 25-4¾ in the long jump. After a solid performance in the shot put, he approached his high jump PR with a height of 7-¼. He concluded the first day with a very good 47.89 in the 400. Entering the second day, he was in first with a total of 4,523 points but led by only forty-four points over the surprising Andreas Rizzi. Wentz was fifty-eight points back of Rizzi in third.
Hingsen was outstanding through the second day, with personal bests or near bests in the hurdles, discus, pole vault, and javelin. He was on world record pace, but Siegfried Wentz was even better, besting his countryman in events six through nine. With the advantage he had built through the first day, Hingsen led by twenty-six points going into the 1,500.
Realizing the record was within reach, Hingsen pushed hard from the start and clocked 4:19.76, over five seconds faster than Wentz. It was a breakout performance for the athlete called “Siggi,” an 8,762-point performance that would be the best of his long career and a mark exceeded at the time by only Jurgen Hingsen and Daley Thompson.
But despite, or perhaps because of, the pressure brought on by Wentz, Hingsen had been spectacular, totaling 8,777 to break Thompson’s world record by thirty-four points. Commenting afterward, he said, “Honestly, I was very surprised by my performance.” As he continued, “I couldn’t really tell where I was in my training because the weather in Germany had been so bad for the two weeks prior to the competition. Did I have any speed? Would all my work during the winter (mostly in California) bear fruit?” But the new world record holder gave credit to his twenty-three-year-old countryman. “This total is due to Siegfried Wentz. Without him, I would still be looking for Thompson’s record.”
While Hingsen was completing the training cycle that would result in his regaining the world record, Daley Thompson was having a distinctly different experience. In February, he injured his back and, as he put it, “really couldn’t train.” Then, as he was regaining his health, he pulled a groin muscle, further complicating his preparations for the inaugural World Championships. Finally, he received the news that “Hollywood Hingsen” had regained the world record.
Throughout his career, Thompson had maintained a steadfast stance of not using injuries as any sort of excuse. In fact, he typically refused to acknowledge or otherwise discuss them. “People don’t need to know about injuries,” he said. “They’re just excuses. You’re always reading about athletes saying they’re injured, and the next week they’ll do something really well and people will say how marvelous that they could do it with such an injury. Well, I’m not into that stuff.”
Whether he wanted to discuss the issue or not, Thompson’s lingering groin injury was impacting his preparation for the World Championships.
World Championships, Helsinki, 1983
After setting the world record at the West German multi-event championships, Jurgen Hingsen would not compete again until traveling to Helsinki. But Thompson had planned to complete one decathlon before the World Championships. Such a competition, he believed, would help him maintain his competitive edge. Unstated, a decathlon a couple of months before the major competition of the year would allow him to test how well he could compete with his various injuries. He chose Toronto and the Canadian Decathlon Championships.
Regarding why Thompson chose this as his only competition of 1983 before the World Championships, the meet director suggested, “He knew we could create a multi-sport event geared to high-performance competition. He also wanted it to be low-key. There is no such thing as a low-key meet for him in Britain. People there would be all over him.”
Thompson had entertained thoughts of attempting to regain the world record, but a wind-aided time in the 100, the first event, ended that pursuit. But in a competition he won easily, he posted solid performances in all events, including a 16-8¾ vault, in amassing 8,507 points. The groin injury continued to be stubbornly troublesome, but he remained hopeful he was moving toward readiness to compete for a world title in two months. As he commented, “I hoped that all the years I had been training would be like money in the bank.”
The track and field world remained skeptical, not that he would be ready, but that he was injured at all. As the magazine had offered for decades for each Olympic competition, Track and Field News provided an overview of each event at the first World Championships and “expert predictions” regarding how the top athletes would finish. In its analysis of the decathlon, editors asked, “Is Daley Thompson seriously hurt or is he ‘sandbagging’?” The editors went on to suggest that if Thompson was not at full strength, Hingsen would likely dominate the competition. Still, both athletes were listed as co-favorites with Siegfried Wentz slotted to finish third.
Obviously, Thompson wasn’t “sandbagging” and was genuinely concerned about a groin injury that would be tested early in the 100 and long jump on the first day. As he said, “The groin is bothered most by the speed events. If I can start with 10.60 and get through the long jump without trouble, I’ll be all right.” Then, as late as the day before the decathlon was to begin, there was uncertainty regarding whether he would line up for the 100 the following morning, with Thompson suggesting that he would make a decision just before the competition was scheduled to begin. As he commented, “I’m thinking only about being 100 percent. For me, there’s no point in competing to finish second.”
Thompson was at the starting line to begin the first World Championship decathlon, though the weather only added to the challenge he faced. Conditions inside the Helsinki Olympic Stadium were chilly, with temperatures never rising above sixty-one degrees, and with swirling winds and consistent light rain and drizzle. These conditions added yet another challenge to an athlete nursing a pulled muscle.
Thompson had suggested that a 10.60 would indicate he was in good condition, and the savvy veteran ran exactly that time. Though slower than his rival, Hingsen’s 10.95 was for him a strong performance. Both athletes were off to good starts, and Thompson’s groin seemed to be withstanding the stress of sprinting.
The long jump represented the second test of Daley Thompson’s fitness, and his leap of 25-10¼ suggested his injury would not appreciably impact his performance. Hingsen reached a solid 25-5¼. At this pace, exceeding the world record was within reach for both athletes. In the shot put, Hingsen threw 51-4½, a full foot ahead of Thompson who had approached his personal best. The Brit now led by ninety-six points, but barring a turn in the competition, the two athletes would battle to the end for the world title and possibly for the world record.
That turn occurred in the high jump. In setting his most recent world record earlier that year, Jurgen Hingsen had utilized his 6-7 frame to jump 7-1¾, higher than Thompson had ever reached. In the cool, swirling winds of Helsinki, the German could clear no higher than 6-6¾. Thompson cleared 6-8, the same height he had cleared in setting his last world record. It was a huge turn in the competition, causing Thompson to think, “I’ve got it now.” He did, but not without more struggles.
In the 400, at the end of a long, cold, and wet day, Thompson shot out of the blocks and covered the first 200 at an especially fast pace. Too fast, perhaps, as he struggled home in a subpar 48.12, finishing behind Hingsen’s 48.08.
Daley Thompson had finished day one in the lead with 4,486 points, 120 more than Jurgen Hingsen. With two subpar events, the high jump for the German and the 400 for the Brit, the world record was likely out of reach. And though Hingsen had some second-day events in which he typically performed better than his rival, that 120-point gap would be challenging to overcome.
On day two, the temperature in Helsinki was colder but the skies were dry. In part because of the chill in the air as well as his lack of work on the hurdles due to his groin injury, Thompson worried about the first event of the second day. But he ran 14.37 and was edged by Hingsen at the line, losing only one point to his rival. His body was still holding up to the strain and the cold. Thompson reached a very solid 145-10 in the discus, surpassing Hingsen by nearly four feet. He extended his lead to 141 points and barring injury or not recording a mark in any of the last three events, the world title was Thompson’s. Trailing world record pace by 114 points, regaining the world record from Hingsen increasingly seemed out of reach.
Not that he didn’t give it a good try. In the pole vault, Thompson was the last athlete in the competition, clearing a personal best-equaling 16-8¾. Then, perhaps playing to the crowd, he completed what would become his signature backflip into the pole vault pit. Hingsen still competed intensely, reaching his own personal best of 16-¾ but still falling further behind his rival. The West German clawed back eighty-three points in the javelin, outthrowing Thompson by over seven feet. Heading into the last event, Thompson led by an insurmountable 163 points. With only the 1,500 remaining, the three medalists were clear: Thompson, Hingsen, and Siegfried Wentz in third.
The only question that remained was whether Thompson would regain the world record.
Daley Thompson had put on an amazing performance, especially given his injuries and the conditions in Helsinki. It was simply not quite good enough to surpass the world record. He would need to run 4:14 to break Hingsen’s standard, over eight seconds faster than his personal best. With the record reasonably out of reach, Thompson opted to run for the win. His 4:29.75 secured the win with 8,666 points, the sixth-best total of all time.
Fresh off his world record, Hingson battled valiantly to the end, running 4:21.59. But he could get no closer than within 105 points of Thompson, finishing second to his rival, again. His West German teammate, the fast-rising Siegfried Wentz, used a 14.13 hurdle time and a huge 246-4 javelin throw to solidify his position in third.
But Daley Thompson was the world champion, adding this prestigious title to his Olympic gold medal. Reflecting on this win, he said, “It feels a lot better than I expected. But I must admit, I felt the strain. My body tells me that it needs a long rest now and that’s just what I intend to give it.”
Neither Thompson nor Hingsen competed in another decathlon in 1983, entering a long training phase in preparation for the Los Angeles Olympics. In the Track and Field News annual rankings, Daley Thompson was again ranked #1, his head-to-head win at the World Championships overcoming Jurgen Hingson’s world record performance. Hingsen was rated second and Siegfried Wentz third. With this his third top ranking, Thompson joined the ranks of four decathlon legends (Bob Mathias, Rafer Johnson, Bill Toomey, and Bruce Jenner) who were top-ranked three times. For Thompson, it would not be his last top ranking as he continued building the competitive resume of arguably the greatest decathlete in history.
But as 1984 approached, ardent decathlon fans pondered several questions. With the exchange of world records, who was the best decathlete in the world? Answers to that question were perhaps skewed by the next one, would Jurgen Hingsen ever defeat Daley Thompson? And would Thompson be able to hold off Hingsen to win his second gold medal? Seemingly all of these issues would be resolved in the Olympic Stadium in Los Angeles.
References
ABC Sports, 1984, “Profile of Jurgen Hingsen,” ABC Sports coverage of the 1984 Olympics, broadcast August 9, 1984, downloaded from youtube.com
Athletics Weekly, 1982, “8707 – and a New World Record for Daley,” June 5, 1982
FPZ, 2017, “Press Release – FPZ Interview with Jurgen Hingsen,” November 29, 2017, downloaded from https://news-fpz-de.translate.goog/pressreleases
Levin, Dan, 1984, “Hingsen – ‘I Do the Last One for Daley,” Sports Illustrated, July 18, 1984
McEvoy, Jonathan, 2012, “Decathlon Icons! Daley and Hingsen Recall an Olympic Rivalry That Shook the World,” Daily Mail, July 24, 2012, downloaded from www.dailymail.co.uk/
Moore, Kenny, 1982, “In Sum, It Was Just What He Wanted,” Sports Illustrated, May 31, 1982
Moore, Kenny, 1984, “He’s a Perfect 10,” Sports Illustrated, July 18, 1984
Myers, Morley, 1983, “The Clash Between West German Jurgen Hingsen and Britain’s Daley Thompson . . .,” UPI, August 11, 1983, downloaded from www.upi.com/Archives
Nelson, Bert, 1983, “Thompson Outduels Hingsen Again,” Track and Field News, September 1983
Nelson, Cordner, 1986, Track’s Greatest Champions, Los Altos, California: TAFNews Press, 1986
Pieraccini, Gabriella, 2020, “Thompson and Hingsen: How the Kings of Athletics Shaped the Decathlon,” European Athletics, September 2, 2020, downloaded from www.european-athletics.com
Rozin, Skip, 1983, Daley Thompson – The Subject is Winning, London: Stanley Paul, 1983
Tagliabue, John, 1984, “Hingsen Pushing Toward Decathlon Duel,” The New York Times, July 9, 1984
Track and Field News, 1982, “Thompson Totals Terrific 8707,” July 1982
Track and Field News, 1982, “Hingsen: 8723 WR,” September 1982
Track and Field News, 1982, “Thompson Consumed by the Decathlon,” October 1982
Track and Field News, 1982, “Multi-Events,” October 1982
Track and Field News, 1982, “Lewis is the Leader,” December 1982
Track and Field News, 1982, “Thompson Back on Top,” December 1982
Track and Field News, 1983, “Hingsen 8777,” July 1983
Track and Field News, 1983, “Decathlon – Hingsen Has WR Again,” August 1983
Track and Field News, 1983, “World Scene – Decathlon,” October 1983
Track and Field News, 1983, “World Scene,” December 1983
Track and Field News, 1984, “Decathlon – Thompson Overcomes WR,” January 1984
Track and Field News, “World Rankings – Men’s Decathlon,”, downloaded from trackandfieldnews.com
Tucker, David, 1983, “Mount Olympus Has Come to the Boondocks of Track,” UPI, July 6, 1983, downloaded from www.upi.com/Archives
UPI, 1983, “Hingsen Regains Decathlon Record,” published in The New York Times, June 6, 1983
Zarnowski, Frank, 1989, The Decathlon, Champaign, Illinois: Leisure Press
