Athletics at the 1964 Summer Olympics – Men's decathlon

The decathlon was a men's event and part of the Athletics at the 1964 Summer Olympics program in Tokyo. It was held on 19 October and 20 October 1964. 23 athletes from 15 nations entered and 22 started the first event.

Shot put
Storozhenko moved from fourth place to first with his performance in the shot put, as Thomas dropped from the lead to eighth.

High jump
Wu dropped out of contention after three events, not competing in the high jump.

400 metres
Storozhenko, leading after four, finished last in the 400 metres, falling to fifth place.

First day rankings

 * 1) Willi Holdorf, 4090 points
 * 2) Hans-Joachim Walde, 4074 points
 * 3) Rein Aun, 4067 points
 * 4) Horst Beyer, 3910 points
 * 5) Mykhaylo Storozhenko, 3908 points
 * 6) Paul Irvin Herman, 3876 points
 * 7) Werner Duttweiler, 3837 points
 * 8) Russ Hodge, 3813 points
 * 9) Yang Chuan Kwang, 3803 points
 * 10) Vasili Kuznetsov, 3793 points
 * 11) Richard John Emberger, 3719 points
 * 12) Hector Thomas, 3704 points
 * 13) Valbjoern Thorlaksson, 3640 points
 * 14) Alois Buchel, 3631 points
 * 15) Bill Gairdner, 3568 points
 * 16) Eef Kamerbeek, 3522 points
 * 17) Franco Sar, 3454 points
 * 18) Suzuki Shosuke, 3415 points
 * 19) Koech Kiprop, 3288 points
 * 20) Dramane Sereme, 3277 points
 * 21) Gerry Moro, 3261 points
 * 22) Wu Ar Min, 1734 points (withdrew)
 * 23) Samir Ambrose Vincent, 0 points (withdrew)

110 metre hurdles
Kamerbeek became the second decathlete to drop out.

Pole vault
Duttweiler and Thomas both dropped out before the pole vault. Yang continued to advance, and Herman and Kuznetsov also moved into position to challenge for medals, while Beyer dropped out of contention into 8th place. Holdorf's lead grew to almost 130 points, almost unassailable, and nearly as many as the 150 that separated 2nd from 5th places.

Javelin throw
In the javelin throw, Yang won another event, moving up to fourth place. Holdorf fared poorly, his lead shrinking to 60 points, but with Walde increasing to 67 points ahead of Aun in third place, a German gold medal was nearly assured and the top pair was looking quite likely. In contrast, Yang was only 23 points behind Aun in an effort to knock the Soviet off the medal platform. Kuznetsov was still only a point behind Yang and Herman was not far from them either.

1500 metres
The final event was the 1500 metres. Emberger was the fastest in the event, but still finished in 10th place overall. Aun, with a 67-point deficit to catch Walde for the silver medal, needed to run approximately 10 seconds faster than the German. His 4:22.3 was more than enough to beat Walde's 4:37.5, giving Aun 100 more points than Walde and the silver medal. Yang and Kuznetsov, who had been threatening to join the medalists, each dropped in the rankings after the 1500.