The Indianapolis wrote:
He cant vault or throw the javelin, and hes kind of old to learn. Being less than mediocre at these skills would hurt him more than his sprinting and jumping would help him. He could be an alright decathlete, idk how good, but theres serious obstacles to him ever becoming a great one. That's the point, remember? Otherwise what would be the point of bcoming a decathlete if hes less successful than he is now and its in an event thats less lucrative? To become a better decathelete than he is a sprinter, thats tough. Probably not worth it to make the switch.
Hence, my comment. Hes good at a lot of things, but hes yet to become great at anything.
How do we know he can't learn to vault or throw javelin at a world medalist level in the decathalon? Is it too late to learn? Don't most decathaletes come from sprinting and jumping backgrounds as opposed to vaulting and throwing? Meaning, don't most if them take up those disciplines in college?[/quote]
A- I totally disagree that he is not good at any event. He is the defending NCAA indoor 200m champion. #5 all time (NCAA). That’s good.
B- I also disagree that he can become a good decathlete. He is too old to pick that up. He would be at the right school however. I’m sure that he could be ok, but… Let’s compare Boling to Warner.
100m: Boling 10.11, Warner 10.12
400m: Boling 45.51, Warner 46.54 (not sure if he ran a fresh one in the past 5 years)
LJ: Boling 8m25, Warner 8m28
110H: Warner 13.27
HJ: Warner 2m09…
Yes, he is as good as Warner in 100m and LJ and a little better than Warner at 400m. But there is no room for error here. Warner can run 13.27 at 110H. 0% chance that Boling would ever run that. Then it gets worse in the PV, Javelin, DT…