United States Academic Decathlon United States Academic Decathlon The Academic Decathlon (also called AcaDec, AcaDeca or AcDec) is the only annual high school academic competition organized by the non-profit United States Academic Decathlon Association (USAD). The competition consists of seven multiple choice tests, two performance events, and an essay. Academic Decathlon was created by Robert Peterson in 1968 for local schools in Orange County, California and expanded nationwide in 1981 by Robert Peterson, William Patton, first President of the new USAD Board and Phillip Bardos, Chairman of the new USAD Board. That year, 17 states and the District of Columbia participated, a number that
Decathlon simultaneously. The one-hour decathlon is a special type of decathlon in which the athletes have to start the last of ten events (1500 m) within sixty minutes of the start of the first event. The world record holder is Czech decathlete Robert Změlík, who achieved 7,897 points at a meeting in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, in 1992. In Masters athletics, performance scores are age graded before being applied to the standard scoring table. This way, marks that would be competitive within an age division can get rated, even if those marks would not appear on the scale designed for younger age groups.