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O'Brien vs Šebrle

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GOAT verdictgoatrank.world
O'BrienWinner
85.1

O'Brien wins: Dominance, Peak, Honours, Statistics

Šebrle
82.2

Šebrle wins: Longevity

Candidates
Locked to Athletics

Shareable URL · /compare/dan-obrien-vs-roman-sebrle

Time range

Showing full careers. Pick a window to recalculate the selected period.

Category radar

Verdict

Weighted GOAT score
🇺🇸 Dan O'Brien
85.1

O'Brien leads in 4 of 5 weighted categories. Olympic decathlon champion in 1996 with three world titles.

1. Dan O'Brien
85.1
2. Roman Šebrle
82.2

Category breakdown

Season form · Major golds per season

Career timeline · Major golds per season

Cumulative output season by season — the shape of each career against the other.

GOAT pace tracker

Career stage · GOAT pace

Through season 5 · Major golds per season
1. 🇺🇸 Dan O'Brien5 seasons played · career day 2,55643,593 major golds
Setting the pace at this stage
2. 🇨🇿 Roman Šebrle5 seasons played · career day 2,55642,600 major golds
-2.3% vs O'Brien at the same stage
Ghost race · career day30100365100018253650
🇺🇸 O'Brien000017,17061,099
🇨🇿 Šebrle000025,10060,426

Careers are aligned at debut, so a rookie's first 5 seasons are measured against the same window in a legend's career — Yamal against Messi at the same age-stage, a tour rookie against Tiger Woods in 1996.

MetricO'BrienRetiredŠebrleRetired
Olympic golds11
World Championship golds3
World records1
Best score (points)8,891
US titles7
World titles1
European titles3
Personal best (points)9,026
Olympic medals2
Dominance w25%8680
Peak w20%9286
Longevity w20%7480
Honours w20%8682
Statistics w15%8884

Fan vote — data vs the people

GOAT Rank · the data
O'Brien85.1
Šebrle82.2
The people
O'Brien
Šebrle

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Make your case for O'Brien vs Šebrle. The scoring is published in full — if you can point at the pillar or the weight you disagree with, we read it. Read the methodology paper.

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