Bruce Jenner, Daley Thompson and Ashton Eaton are just some of the famous athletes to win a gold medal in the decathlon event at the Olympic Games. Itasca’s Zach Ziemek hopes his name is added to that list this year, but that won’t be easy.
“There is a reason the winner of the decathlon is called the greatest athlete in the world,” said Ziemek’s high school coach Jay Ivory. “Ten events over two days – it is a grueling competition. You can’t have a weakness.”
Coaches at Lake Park High School say they saw Ziemek’s potential as a future decathlete when he was just a freshman.
“As he progressed through his high school career you just saw leaps and bounds as far as his power speed development,” said Bob Nihells, assistant boys track and field coach at Lake Park High School.
High School rules only allow an athlete to compete in four events, but coaches said Ziemek could have been a competitor in about six. One of his biggest strengths was the pole vault, which he won two state titles in.
But despite his successes in pole vaulting, the school’s Assistant Track and Field Coach Tom Kaberna encouraged Ziemek to be a multi-event athlete.
“He was all gung ho,” Kaberna said. “He said, ‘I would love to do them all.’ He is passionate about track so I think it was an easy transition for him.”
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As a Big Ten record-holder in the decathlon, and the NCAA champion in the indoor heptathlon, Ziemek hopes to continue his successful run in 2016 and do more than just compete in the Rio Olympics.
“He is looking to get a personal record, he said, and hopefully a medal for the United States,” Kaberna said.
And he has a lot of people rooting for him to do just that.
“What an amazing kid,” said Ivory. “I could not be any prouder and if there is a kid that you say I want this to happen to or has worked for it, it is him. He has earned every bit of it.”
