This note, which is based on a final year project for a BSC degree, presents an investigation on the Olympic decathlon. It shows that the existing non-linear transformation which is used to assign points to athletes' performance gives practically identical results to that of a simpler linear one. In addition, the paper presents evidence to support the contention that the ten events in the Olympic decathlon cannot be reduced to a smaller set describing similar athletic versatility. (Contains 4 tables and 5 figures.)