Roosen very strong fourth place in the Olympic decathlon in the Dutch record

Decathlete Sven Roosen finished fourth in his Olympic debut. Roosen set a Dutch record with 8,607 points. He developed a personal record in four areas.

Roosen was in ninth place after the first day. Things went even better on the second day and he made up for it a lot in the last 1,500 meters. A medal remained out of reach, but Roosen’s performance is the best ever by a Dutch decathlete at the Games.

“I never expected to finish fourth, this makes no sense at all,” said Roosen, who is not disappointed about missing out on a medal by just one place.

“My minimum is just really high, so you automatically increase your maximum,” Roosen explains of his success.

Norwegian Markus Rooth won gold with 8,796 points. Rooth (22) took the upper hand after the ninth event, a jumper, from Germany’s Leo Neugebauer, who won silver.

Big names dropped out of the battle for medals before and during the decathlon. Frenchman Kevin Mayer, good for two Olympic silver medals and two world titles, had wanted to shine in front of his home crowd, but withdrew earlier this week with injury hamstring.

Defending champion and world record holder Damian Warner was second after seven events, but missed out on a medal after three faults in the pole vault. The same thing happened to Norwegian Sander Skotheim, number three in the rankings at the time.