By David Martin, PA Sport

Arguably Britain's greatest-ever athlete and certainly the World's best-ever decathlete, Daley Thompson won gold medals at both the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games.

Having appeared four years earlier in Montreal as an 18-year-old apprentice, Thompson went to Moscow knowing his major rival for the gold medal, world record holder Guido Kratschmer, would be missing.

West Germany had joined the American-led boycott of the Games after the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.

But even if Kratschmer had competed the German would have been at a psychological disadvantage after being beaten by Thompson.

In a great contest at Gotzis, Austria in May Thompson set a new world record mark of 8622 points, before Kratschmer took it back two months later.

A very disappointed Thompson vowed he would never lose another decathlon after picking up the 1978 European Championships silver medal.

And he was ruthless to his opponents in Moscow.

On the first day his awesome talent saw Thompson pile up 4542 points to enjoy a very comfortable cushion of 264 ahead of his rivals, who even before that point realised they were fighting for the silver medal, barring a major accident.

Given no assistance by the weather, Thompson literally went through the motions on the last day to clinch his first Olympic gold with a healthy score of 8495, well clear of the Soviet's Yuriy Kutsenko on 8331 and Sergey Zhelanov with 8135.

Four years later Jurgen Hingsen arrived in Los Angeles as world record holder. Significantly the outstanding German had never beaten Thompson, who in the their six confrontations since 1977 had reigned supreme, including the previous summer's World Championships.

Thompson's ascendancy continued, and in the very first event he demoralised Hingsen when running 10.44 seconds, the fastest-ever legal 100 metres of his career.

Helped by a personal best long jump of 8.01m, the defending champion closed the first day with a score of 4633 - the best-ever in the event's history.

With Hingsen failing to capitalise on his better 110 metres hurdles skills, Thompson stuttered in the second event of the closing day with early below par discus throws of 37.90m and 41.42m.

The big German had thrown a personal best 50.82m.

Rising to the challenge, Thompson's last effort was a respectable 46.56m, which was not far short of his own best.

But Hingsen made reduced his lead to 32 points.

With his tail up after that fright, Thompson won the pole vault and had a five metres advantage in the javelin.

That left Thompson, with one event remaining, well on target to breaking Hingsen's two-month-old world record of 8798 points.

Forever the showman Daley used the 1500 metres as a celebratory occasion, finishing with a score of 8797 points, well clear of Hingsen's still impressive 8673 points.

The brilliant German was never to beat Francis Morgan (Daley) Thompson, born of a Nigerian father and Scottish mother on July 30 1958.