Steve Fritz missed an Olympic medal by 20 points in Atlanta (1996). He had finished the best competition of his life, scoring 8644 points. That got him 4th place.
Simon Poelman's personal best of 8359 points is still a New Zealand national record. This was set at the national athletics championships in Christchurch 1987.
Roman Šebrle became the first decathlete ever to achieve over 9000 points, setting the World Record at 9026 points (Götzis 2001), succeeding his compatriot, Tomaš Dvorak, who had scored 8994 points two years earlier (Prague 1999).
Decathlon 2000 always used to be a huge inspiration and now I’m glad to be a part of the team here! It gives me an opportunity to discuss and write about the decathlon and to meet people with the same interests - Jessica Bullenkamp