Daley Thompson

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Medal record
Olympic Games
Men’s Athletics
Gold	1980 Moscow	Decathlon
Gold	1984 Los Angeles	Decathlon
World Championships
Gold	1983 Helsinki	Decathlon
European Championships
Silver	1978 Prague	Decathlon
Gold	1982 Athens	Decathlon
Gold	1986 Stuttgart	Decathlon
Commonwealth Games
Gold	1978 Edmonton	Decathlon
Gold	1982 Brisbane	Decathlon
Gold	1986 Edinburgh	Decathlon
Silver	1986 Edinburgh	4x100m

Francis Morgan Thompson, CBE (born July 30, 1958 in Worcester Park), known commonly as Daley Thompson, is a former English decathlete and arguably the greatest the world had ever seen.

Thompson won consecutive gold medals at the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games, and broke the world record for the event four times. His best score in the event was set in the 1984 Olympic competition at 8847 points, a world record that stood for nine years and an Olympic record that stood for twenty years until the Czech athlete Roman Šebrle scored 8893 points in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. He competed for an unprecedented third Olympic decathlon gold at the 1988 Seoul games, but was severely hampered by injury and could only finish fourth. Thompson was the first athlete to simultaneously hold Olympic, Commonwealth, European and World titles in a single event.

His rivalry with 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.

He was a natural showman who endeared himself to the British public with his irreverent personality, notably when he nervelessly whistled the British national anthem God Save The Queen after receiving his gold medal in 1984. Afterwards, he famously sent a message to friends back home via a TV interview by showing his medal and saying I've got the Big G, boys - the Big G!

Sometimes his behaviour caused offence, not least when he refused to carry the English flag 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.

Since retiring from athletics in 1992, Thompson has been associated with various football clubs and also had stints as a television presenter. However, he will always be remembered as one of the world's greatest ever athletes, who single-handedly transformed the decathlon from obscurity to an event of national and international interest.

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Olympic champions in the all around, pentathlon and decathlon
As all-around: Tom Kiely
As pentathlon: Hjalmer Mellander | Jim Thorpe | Eero Lehtonen (twice)
As decathlon: Jim Thorpe | Helge Løvland | Harold Osborn | Paavo Yrjölä | James Bausch | Glenn Morris | Bob Mathias (twice) | Milt Campbell | Rafer Johnson | Willi Holdorf | Bill Toomey | Nikolay Avilov | Bruce Jenner | Daley Thompson (twice) | Christian Schenk | Robert Změlík | Dan O'Brien | Erki Nool | Roman Šebrle

Post-war British Olympic champions in men's athletics

1956: Chris Brasher (3000 m steeplechase) | 1960: Don Thompson (50 km walk) | 1964: Ken Matthews (20 km walk) | 1964: Lynn Davies (long jump) | 1968: David Hemery (400 m hurdles) 1980: Allan Wells (100 m) | 1980: Steve Ovett (800 m) | 1980 & 1984: Sebastian Coe (1500 m) | 1980 & 1984: Daley Thompson (decathlon) | 1992: Linford Christie (100 m) | 2000: Jonathan Edwards (triple jump) | 2004: Jason Gardener, Darren Campbell, Marlon Devonish & Mark Lewis-Francis (4 x 100 m relay)

Preceded by Ian Botham	BBC Sports Personality of the Year 1982	Succeeded by Steve Cram
Preceded by Sebastian Coe	United Press International Athlete of the Year 1982	Succeeded by Carl Lewis