Markus Rooth

• Status: Active
• Height: ~182cm
• Weight: ~80kg (176lbs)
• Age: 23
• Birthday: December 22, 2001
• Nationality: Norwegian
• Events: Decathalon
• Personal Bests:
  • Decathlon: 8796 points
  • Long jump: 8.01m
  • Pole vault: 5.30m
  • 110 meter hurdles: 14.25s
  • 400-meters: 47.69s
  • 100-meters: 10.71s
  • Javelin: 66.87m
  • High jump: 1.99m
  • Discus throw: 49.80m
  • Shot put: 15.52m
  • 1500 meters: 4:39.56

Markus Rooth Honours

• 2024 Olympic Games Champion in the Decathlon
• 2023 European U23 Champion in the Decathlon

Markus Rooth Career

Markus Rooth was born in Oslo Norway, and won the gold medal for Norway at the 2024 Olympic Games in the men’s decathalon.

Rooth has been competing in the decathlon since he was a youth athlete. In 2017, at the age of 15, he finished third at the Kuortane Nordic U18 Combined Events Match with a total of 6626 points. The next year, he would finish second at the Jessheim Nordic U18 Combined Events Championships in his home country as well as finish seventh at the European U18 Championships in the decathlon.

Still only 17 years old during the 2019 season, he went on to finish third at the European U20 Championships with a score of 7692 points. He would go on to break the Norwegian U20 record in the decathlon the next season at the Boysen Memorial at Bislett stadium with a personal best of 8,238 points.

International Success

The next season, Rooth won the European U23 Championships in the Decathlon and broke the Norwegian U23 record. He would go on to break the open Norwegian record the next year with a score of 8,307 points.

In 2023, he finished eighth at the World Championships in Budapest with a personal best of 8,491 points. The next year, with the Olympics on the horizon, Rooth competed in the decathlon at the European Athletics Championships in Rome. He was in medal contention before having to pull out after an injury in the pole vault that caused visible limping

Despite the injury, he would regain his form in time for the Olmypics. He had seen improvements in his personal best in the event each year from 2021 to 2024, but he wasn’t the favorite going into the Olympics. Germany’s Leo Neugebauer had scored a world-leading 8,961 points in Eugene Oregon already that season while the defending Olympic Champion Damian Warner was also expected to make a push to defend his title.

However, Warner’s gold medal aspirations ended when he missed all three attempts at his opening height of 4.60 meters in the pole vault and had to drop out.

Rooth would be in first place heading into the final event, the 1500 meters, with a narrow lead over Neugebauer. As long as Rooth finished ahead, he would likely win the competition unless Lindon Victor took a sizeable ahead of him and moved up from third place.

Although the 1500 isn’t one of the Rooth’s better events, he finished in the middle of the pack and ahead of the other two gold medal threats, securing victory.