Quantifying the limits of human athletic performance: A Bayesian analysis of elite decathletes

Abstract :

Because the decathlon tests many facets of athleticism, including sprinting, throwing, jumping, and endurance, many consider it to be the ultimate test of athletic ability. On this view, estimating the maximal decathlon score and understanding what it would take to achieve that score provides insight into the upper limits of human athletic potential. To this end, we develop a Bayesian composition model for forecasting how individual athletes perform in each of the 10 decathlon events of time. Besides capturing potential non-linear temporal trends in performance, our model carefully captures the dependence between performance in an event and all preceding events. Using our model, we can simulate and evaluate the distribution of the maximal possible scores and identify profiles of athletes who could realistically attain scores approaching this limit.

A pre-print is available here.

Recommended citation: Nguyen, P-H. V., Smoliga, J. M., Lindaman, B., and Deshpande, S. K. (2026). "Quantifying the limits of human athletic performance: A Bayesian analysis of elite decathletes." Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports (to appear).