The minimum score required in Decathlon by Activision to earn an Activision patch was: Gold Medal beat 10,000 points, Silver Medal beat 9,000 points, Bronze Medal beat 8,600 points. The best advice in Decathlon by Activision is to read the manual so that you know all of the nuances of the game. The manual gives some really good tips on this game. Make sure both difficulty switches are set to B.
There are 10 events just like in a real Olympic Decathlon. You have to be fast at moving the joystick, have good timing, and have stamina for some of the running events.
I hold the joystick horizontally. I hold my hand in the form of the Vulcan sign for “live long and prosper”(a V grip). The joystick goes in the V between the two middle fingers. This allows for the wrist and forearm to engage and create additional speed.
***HINT: There is a bug in early released versions of the game cartridge that allows for extremely high jumps in the pole vault. TwinGalaxies.com capped the world record at 5.6 meters for this reason. In the pole vault event, just after you release the pole, keep pressing the fire button rapidly to jump higher and higher. There seems to be no limit to how high you can jump; even going off the top of the screen. But eventually the game score will become an error if you go too far with this bug/cheat.
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If you are ready to submit a world record score for Decathlon by Activision, just check out the scoreboard here: https://www.twingalaxies.com/game/decathlon/atari-2600-vcs
And when you’ve earned your patch, just visit https://www.ActivisionPatches.com