Francis Morgan Oyodélé Thompson CBE (born July 30, 1958 in Worcester Park), known commonly as Daley Thompson, is a former decathlete from England. He won the decathlon gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984, and broke the world record for the event four times.
With four world records, two Olympic gold medals, three Commonwealth titles, and wins in the World and European Championships, Daley Thompson is often considered the greatest decathlete the world has ever seen. The second son of a Nigerian father and Scottish mother, Daley showed a remarkable aptitude for sport while at boarding school in Sussex. Initially he was a member of Haywards Health Harriers but when he returned to London in 1975 he joined the Essex Beagles club. Later that year he won the first two decathlon competitions he entered, while in 1976 he won the AAA title and was the 18th at the Montréal Olympic Games. The following year, he won the European Junior Title and in 1978 came the first of his three Commonwealth titles.
In 1979, he failed to finish in his only decathlon of the year but won the long jump at the UK Championships. He then opened the 1980 Olympic season with a world decathlon record of 8,648 points at Götzis, Austria, in May, and followed this with a comfortable win at the Moscow Olympics. After a quiet 1981 season he was in devastating form in 1982; back at Götzis in May, he raised the world record to 8,730 points and then in September, at the European Championships in Athens, he took the record up to 8,774 points. The following month in Brisbane, Thompson took his second Commonwealth title.
In 1983 Daley was crowned the all-round king at the inaugural World Championships and became the first decathlete to hold the European, World and Olympic titles simultaneously. He spent much of the summer of 1984 in California preparing for the defense of his Olympic title, with Jürgen Hingsen, the West German who had taken over from Thompson as the world record holder, expected to be a major threat. Thompson took the lead in the first event and was never headed throughout the competition, although it seemed that, by easing off in the 1,500 metres he had missed recapturing the world record by just one point. When the photo-finish pictures were examined, however, it was found that Thompson should have been credited with one more point in the 110 metres hurdles so he had in fact, equaled Hingsen’s record. Then when the new scoring tables were introduced, Thompson became the sole record holder once more with a recalculated score of 8,847 points – a world record that stood until 1992, when it was surpassed by the American athlete Dan O'Brien with a score of 8891. His two victories in the decathlon are a feat shared only with the American Bob Mathias. Thompson's 1984 performance is still the UK record.
After his Olympic success, Thompson won his third Commonwealth title in 1986 but after that he never quite recaptured the superlative form of earlier years. In 1987 he suffered his first decathlon defeat for nine years when he finished ninth in the World Championships, and at his third Olympics in Seoul in 1988 he finished fourth. He made the Commonwealth Games team for the fourth time in 1990 but was forced to withdraw because of injury
Thompson's rivalry with West German athlete Jürgen Hingsen was legendary in the sport throughout the 1980s. The pair consistently traded world records, but Thompson always had the upper hand in the major events, remaining undefeated in all competitions for nine years between 1979 and 1987.
Thompson was a natural showman who endeared himself to the British public with his irreverent personality, notably when he whistled the British national anthem God Save the Queen with studied insouciance after receiving his gold medal in 1984. Afterwards, he famously sent a message to friends back home via a TV interview, showing his medal and saying I've got the Big G, boys - the Big G!
Sometimes Thompson's behaviour caused offence, not least when he refused to carry the Union Jack at the opening ceremony of the 1982 Commonwealth Games, claiming that the effort required participating in the four-and-a-half hour ceremony would reduce his chances of winning his event. He won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award the same year. Making his acceptance speech during the live broadcast of the programme Thompson uttered an obscenity, which caused media comment. Despite this, he was awarded the OBE in 1983, followed by a CBE in 2000.
Thompson's name was used for three officially licensed home computer games by Ocean Software in the 1980s: Daley Thompson's Decathlon, Daley Thompson's Supertest, and Daley Thompson's Olympic Challenge.
On retirement from athletics in 1992, Thompson had periods of association with various football clubs and also had stints as a television presenter. Thompson worked as a fitness trainer and motivational speaker, as well as appearing at corporate events. He was also well known for his appearances in commercials for the drink Lucozade in the 1980s.
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