Ashton James Eaton (born January 21, 1988) is a retired American decathlete and two-time Olympic champion, who holds the world record in the indoor heptathlon event.

His world record was broken on September 16, 2018, by Frenchman Kevin Mayer, who became the third man to pass the 9,000-point barrier, with a total of 9,126 points.

In college, Eaton competed for the University of Oregon, where he was a five-time NCAA champion, and won The Bowerman award in 2010.

Eaton is only the third Olympian (after Bob Mathias of the US and Great Britain's Daley Thompson) to achieve back-to-back gold medals in the decathlon.

[9][10] He has three paternal siblings, including Verice Bennett, a first sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, who received the Silver Star in December 2011 for serving with valor in Afghanistan.

He was athletic from a young age, competing in football, basketball, running, soccer, wrestling, and he earned a black belt in taekwondo.

[6] When Eaton was in the fifth grade, he and his mother relocated to Bend, Oregon,[7] where he later attended Mountain View High School.

[6] Eaton married his University of Oregon teammate, Canadian multi-event athlete Brianne Theisen, on July 15, 2013, one year after both competed in the London Olympics.

[6] In his first year as an Oregon Duck 2006–07, he was one of only three freshmen nationwide to qualify provisionally for NCAAs in the combined events, both indoors and outdoors.

[18] At the 2010 NCAA Indoor Championships, Eaton broke the heptathlon world record with a score of 6,499, eclipsing Dan O'Brien's 17-year-old mark by 23 points.

[21] At the 2009 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, Eaton placed second in the decathlon behind Trey Hardee with 8,075 points.

[24] In August 2011, at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, Eaton won the silver medal in the decathlon competition with a final points tally of 8505, losing first place to his compatriot Trey Hardee.

[25] In March 2012, at the 2012 IAAF World Indoor Championships held in Istanbul, Eaton won the gold medal in the heptathlon competition with a new world record 6645, winning five events (60 m, 60 m hurdles, long jump, pole vault and 1000 m) out of seven and finished third for the rest (high jump and shot put).

In the process, he brought his total score for the decathlon to 9039, breaking Roman Šebrle's previous world record of 9026 points.

Eaton won the gold medal in the Heptathlon at the 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships held in Sopot, Poland on 7 & 8 March 2014.

He opened the competition at the 15th world indoor championships at Ergo Arena with his fastest time ever for the 60 m, 6.66 seconds and never trailed.

On Day 2, he opened with an outstanding time of 7.64 in the 60 m hurdles - a Championship meet record - and an excellent pole vault of 5.20m/17' 0-3/4".

Eaton told Track & Field News that during the 2014 outdoor season he planned to run some 400 m hurdles races for the first time in his career, as means of "doing something fun" while building his stamina for the 400 and 1,500 in future decathlon competitions.

He also hoped to compete in some (world class) Diamond League meets in (variously) the 100 m, 110 m hurdles and/or the long jump.