Decathlon, Men

The top-ranked decathlete in the world in 1991 was American Dan O’Brien who won the 1991 TAC Meet with a top score of 8,844 points, and was also the 1991 World Champion. Another American, Dave Johnson, had been world-ranked #2 in 1990, and won the TAC Meet in 1986, 1989, 1990, and 1992, placing second to O’Brien in 1991. Both athletes were sponsored by Reebok and leading up to the Barcelona Olympics, the shoe manufacturer began a series of ads featuring the two decathletes. In the ads, they were always called simply Dan and Dave, and Reebok showed them training and competing against each other, hoping to reap the rewards of both of them winning medals in the decathlon at Barcelona. But one problem remained – the US Olympic Trials. O’Brien was the stronger of the two and was leading comfortably in that meet on the second day, when he no-heighted in the pole vault. He had no chance to make the Olympic team after that failure. Johnson went on to win the Olympic Trials and make the team.

With O’Brien out, and defending champion Christian Schenk injured, the favorite’s role in Barcelona probably fell to 1990 European Champion Christian Plaziat. But the event was now highly unpredictable. The lead after day one went to Germany’s Paul Meier but after the high hurdles, Czechoslovakia’s Robert Změlik took over the lead and never let go. He won quite easily with Spain’s Antonio Peñalver 199 points back in second place. Dave Johnson won the bronze medal, bringing Reebok some measure of solace, especially in Europe, since Změlík also wore Reebok.