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Following his decathlon gold at the 1980 Moscow Olympics it was two
years before Daley made the headlines again on the track. Competing at
Gotzis, Austria on May 22/23 Daley reclaimed his world record with
8707pts. two years almost to the day after he had established his first
World Record (8622 pts.) at the same venue. He ran a 10.49sec. 100m. and
46.88sec. 400m. (pb) on the first day and one personal best of
14.31sec. on the second, for the 110m.H. Jurgen Hingsen (W. Germany)
with 8529pts. was second. They would do battle again later that summer
and many times thereafter. The major event that year was the European
Championships in Athens, a title Daley had lost four years earlier to
the Soviet Aleksander Grebenyuk by 51 points.
This time he would not
suffer which for him was the ignominy of second best. Daley's first day
was not spectacular, 83pts. down on his world record "day one" total,
but his second day was very solid with a time of 14.39sec. in the
110m.H. 45.48m. in the discus and a 5.00m. pole vault (worth over 1,
000pts.) kept Daley well ahead, despite not a single personal best in
the competition. He needed a sub 4min. 26sec. 1500m. to better his
World Record and got it running 4min. 23.71sec. - and the legs off all
the other competitors (see photo above). His total was 8743pts.
an improvement of 36 on his Gotzis record. To round off the year he
retained his Commonwealth title in Brisbane in October with 8410pts.
without the need to stretch himself. He was voted BBC TV's 'Sports
Personality of the Year', the tenth athlete since 1954. (GH)
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