Must watch: the story of a bored Italian decathlete

In Canada, we’re very lucky to still be able to go outside for runs, but that’s not the case in every country, like in Italy, where there has been a nationwide lockdown for weeks. It would be hard enough to be a runner in Italy who can’t go run, but imagine being a decathlete during this time. That’s 10 events that you couldn’t train for, which is a struggle Italian decathlete Simone Cairoli knows all too well. To combat his boredom and get a taste of his 10 favourite sports once again, Cairoli filmed a video entitled Decathlon in a Room (Story of a Bored Italian Decathlete).

Rinchiudi un decatleta o un’eptatleta in una stanza per un mese, e troverà il modo per gareggiare comunque.#inspiredbyphilippklein #GoPro #decathlon pic.twitter.com/kwN01tFkLq

— Simone Cairoli (@SimoCairoli) April 26, 2020

Cairoli is an eight-time Italian champion, with six wins at the Italian Indoor Athletics Championships in the heptathlon (including the last four straight) and two at the Italian Athletics Championships decathlon (2015 and 2016). In his stop-motion video, he takes viewers through the 10 events in a decathlon, in order, with captions for each one. He even added commentary and audio of an audience cheering him on throughout each throw, jump or run.

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The idea of a stop-motion decathlon video is already pretty funny, but Cairoli adds some more humour to it, like when he drops his shot put on his foot, when he sends sand flying into the long jump judge’s face (spoiler: he also plays the judge) and when he clears the pole vault bar, only to have his pole fall and hit him in the head. This video may only be two minutes long, but since it’s stop-motion it probably took him quite some time to complete it, making it an effective way to pass the time while under lockdown.