Initially, combined events were assessed on the basis of athletes' positions in individual disciplines. The winner was the one who had the lowest sum of positions. However, it soon became apparent that a common denominator was needed to evaluate performances and these were points tables. Their development has been fairly complex. All the early scoring tables were linear because this structure was easier. In a graphic form, it is necessary to decide on two items-the peak (national/world record, etc.) and the beginning and to draw a straight line between these points. The first noted linear table was prepared in the USA in 1884.
When the decision was made to include the men's decathlon in the 1912 Olympic Games in 1910, the Swedish Organization Committee began preparing a new set of tables for these international competitions.

Keeping in mind the workload involved, the Organization Committee inclined towards a set of linear tables, where the Olympic records valid in 1908 were given a value of 1.000 points. The Americans adjusted the 1912 tables in 1915, by replacing the original records with the Olympic records from 1912, and assigning these new records 1,000 points. These tables were formally approved by the IAAF in 1921 (although they had been used in the 1920 Olympics) and were applied in 1924, 1928, and 1932, as well as at the first European Championship in 1934 in Turin.

At the end of the 1920s, the Finnish Federation started developing a new set of scoring tables on a national basis. Fractions of points were eliminated and points in all disciplines were counted from 0 to 1,150 points. The tables were prepared by J. Ohls of Finland in 1931. These tables were progressive and were based on the formula P = (eM), where P is the points, where e is the basis of natural logarithms, and M is the performance. These tables met with such a response worldwide that they were approved as international tables at the next IAAF Congress in 1934. These tables were used at the Olympic Games in 1936 and the European Championships in 1938, 1946, and 1950.

A post-war improvement in athletic performance, and a change in rules and technical equipment, led to a further modification of the tables. This was carried out by Sweden's Gosta Holmer and Axel Jorbeck. A Table Committee was set up by the IAAF Congress in Oslo in 1946. The progressiveness of these tables was considerable, and therefore they were subject to criticism. In the following two years, they were revised and the whole set of tables was approved at the Congress in Helsinki in 1952.

In the late 1950s, the disadvantages of the very progressive tables from 1950/52 came increasingly to the fore. A working team led by Axel Jorbeck started preparing new tables for men in accordance with principles proposed by Dr. Karl Ulbrich from Vienna. Ulbrich's ideas, which were used as the basis for the new tables, were very simple. The basis of each performance according to Ulbrich's theory is the speed v. Using all statistical data available, two performances had to be determined, which were designated the values 0 and, for example, 1,000 points. For running competitions, the time has to be converted into speed, and this is used to construct the table. The result of Jorbeck's processing was a very slightly progressive scoring table for running events.

For the technical disciplines, the problem was much more complicated. Ulbrich proposed that the basic indicator contributing to the performance should be the speed of the body in jumps or of the implements in the throws. In this case, the basis is the physical relation of the throw perpendicularly upwards, where the speed occurs in to the power of two, v2. If we do away with the powers in the relationship, in order to arrive at v to the power of one, we have a points table of a regressive nature. This meant that the runs were evaluated on a progressive basis and the technical disciplines on a regressive basis. The tables were approved by the Congress in Belgrade in 1962. They were modified for the runs in the 1970s to take into account hundredths of seconds, which was required by the introduction of electronic timers.

As said, the Ulbrich tables were progressive and for the technical disciplines they were regressive. This was not to the liking of many people, since it was hardly sensible that an athlete, for example in the high jump, who receives certain points for an improvement of 5cm in the high jump at the 1.60m level to get fewer points for a 5cm improvement at the 2.00 level. Changes in the rules, e.g., the use of a different method of jumping over the crossbar in the high jump or the use of different materials in the manufacture of poles, also changed performance significantly in these disciplines, and, therefore made obsolete the previous equivalence.

Improved and more intensive methods of preparing athletes also played a large role. This allowed to the need for a review of the 1962 tables because they were becoming unfair for evaluations and comparisons of disciplines. The evaluation of Daley Thompson's 5.lOm pole vault (not an exceptional performance these days) was 1,075 points, which in the 1962 tables was equivalent to running the 100m in 9.99 seconds!

At the 1981 meeting of the IAAF Technical Committee, on the occasion of the European Championships in Milan (1982), Czech coach Victor Trkal was faced with the task of trying to find an acceptable solution. In the end, the working team lead by Victor Trkal recommended the IAAFTC tables, which are slightly progressive in all disciplines and the IAAF Congress in Los Angeles in 1984 approved the scoring tables for men and women combined event athletes effective as of 1985. The IAAF Congress in Edmonton in 2001 approved the inclusion of the women's decathlon among the disciplines for which world records are kept and approved supplementary tables for the disciplines expanding the heptathlon into a decathlon for women.

What do the tables mean for the preparation of combined events athletes? Primarily they guarantee that their performance will be fairly assessed as a set of points taking into account the athlete's possibilities from the aspect of physical proportions (i.e., physical weight and height). Therefore a completely different approach was adopted for the 1500m. Because the tables are based on the theoretical requirement that kinetic energy exerted by the athlete is responsible for the performance (the work), this means that in training it is necessary to develop primarily the speed element of preparation. It is also necessary to control athletes' weight, so that an optimal balance could be found between the ability to cope with disciplines in terms of strength, agility and nimbleness.

It is therefore down to the art of trainers to find the optimal condition for each individual, along with the most perfect possible development of techniques in the individual disciplines. When trying to make the correct choice of training strategy, it is important to realize that the decathlon is a combination of technically different disciplines, and, therefore physiologically different training approaches are required. Besides the sprint disciplines, there are jumps and throws, and the 1500m assumes a special position.

Masters work with an age grading system that is based on IAAF scores I explained above. We use our scores in combined events, age grade them based on the WMA age grading system and calculate the point score using the IAAF calculation values. For example, in the M65 a 4.22 m long jump will be age graded with a factor 1.5186 for an ‘open’ long jump of 6.40 m. Looking up the IAAF tables, we will find a value of 675 points.
Word wide, the masters will start with a new scoring system called Model 2010 on May 1, 2010. The German Bernd Rehpenning and the American Rex Harvey headed a commission to come up with a better and more consistent scoring system and presented a beauty.
Until the presentation of Model 2010, we found a big gap between performance and scoring for mainly the older competitors. For example, let’s take the M 65 age group. The list leading 1500 m runner in 2008 would have received 520 for 5:06.96 in the old scoring system. The same athlete would have received 520 points for 32.79 m in the discus throw (and would have been number 70 on the scoring list of all German M65 discus throwers!). The reason for this glaring discrepancy is easy. While the open competitors throw the 2.0 kg discus, the M60 goes down to the 1.0 kg discus. On the contrary, the 200 and 1500 m times in the pentathlon will certainly go south over time.  
Basis for the Model 2010 is the age group M/W 35 instead of the world records of the open classes as previous. This will prevent great performances on all masters’ levels from exceeding the world records in the open class (and lend respectability to the scores of all athletes in all age groups).
The German Bernd Rehpenning collected data from many decades of competition. This data formed the basis of the new scoring system.  It shows remarkable consistency in line with ‘normal’ regression of performance due to aging.  Again, let’s look at an example. We take the German Masters Ranking of 2008 and look at the points, athletes in the M65 would have scored who ended the year in place 50: Long Jump Rank 50 in 2008: 4.22 m = 675 points;  Javelin  Rank 50 in 2008: 34.33 = 642 points;  200 m Rank 50 in 2008: 31.17 = 610 points; Discus  Rank 50 in 2008: 36.30 = 700 points; 1500 m  Rank 50 in 2008: 6:10.70 minutes = 686 points.