I used to follow the decathlon as a boy. Not too many 5th-graders knew who CK Yang and Rafer Johnson were, but my obsessional qualities were showing even then. My interest waned over the years, but it does still catch my eye. World's Greatest Athlete is true, but it doesn't translate well to spectators. The greatest athletes in sports could likely have been good decathletes. Calvin Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Bo Jackson would likely have excelled there. Today, someone like Mookie Betts would be a good nominee. We think that Decathletes might be stars in other sports if they had specialised, but I wonder about that. Competitive sports do require some all-around ability, but each sport requires a few particular abilities at not only the 99th percentile, but 99.9th. I suppose that is true of any ability: writing, music, leadership, organisation. The best all-around musician might not be a star, and a star might have some things they aren't superlative at, offset by the few things they are.
I enjoyed this enough to watch it all, but that's probably enough for a year for me.
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