A NEW `GREAT ONE'
London decathlete overcame makeshift training facilities to win gold medal with a record score, as Wes Gilbertson explains.
London, Ont.'s Damian Warner set record scores in individual disciplines and became the fourth athlete to ever break the 9,000-point barrier in the track-and-field odyssey that is the decathlon on his way to winning gold in Tokyo. As one of the 31-year-old's coaches says, `This is Wayne Gretzky-level stuff.' Our Games coverage begins on
Canada's Damian Warner had just made history in the hardest event on the Olympic itinerary, and at the hottest Summer Games on record.
Of course he was thinking about ice cream.
After his wire-to-wire win, after his record-setting scores, after becoming just the fourth decathlete to ever bust the 9,000-point barrier and the first to achieve that feat in this spotlight, the gold medallist deserved as many scoops as he could stomach.
“It's weird, because I think a lot of people now write stuff like, `Oh, if Damian runs this or scores this, he could score that,' ” Warner said with a grin after completing this two-day drain — 10 track-and-field disciplines — with 9,018 points, a new Olympic standard. “But those aren't always the conversations that we're having. Sometimes, we're just walking through like, `I can't wait to get back to the village and have some cake or ice cream.' ”
As the 31-year-old prepared for this historic performance, there were days that ice cream was the last thing he wanted.
After the pandemic hit and as the weather started to turn, Warner had no indoor training option. Then, someone heard about an unused rink in his hometown of London, Ont., the dressing rooms so small that the place would remain shuttered because it simply wouldn't be possible for hockey teams to follow the distancing guidelines.
“The oldest one in the city,” clarified Warner's longtime coach, Gar Leyshon. “The coldest, draftiest one in the city.”
Believe it or not, this would be transformed into a golden training ground. They laid down sheet-metal and rubber flooring. They built a long-jump pit and managed to find a raised runway for pole vault. They dangled netting from the rafters for the throwing events, and Canada's best decathlete learned that after sprinting about 40 metres, he'd better slam on the brakes and try to ease into the padding. Same deal for hurdles. For several months, this would have to suffice.
Warner oozes positivity, and the nicest thing he could come up with in his golden moment was that the makeshift facility was “serviceable.” As he put it, “It almost felt like your dreams were walking away from you, and you couldn't do anything about it.”
Leyshon said, “At one point, in the darkest of days, we were trying to pole vault and his feet were too cold. He could barely feel his toes. And his hands ... he couldn't even hold the pole. And he was like, `What are we doing here?' He said that. He said, `This isn't training for a gold medal.' I said, `Damian, this is all we have.' ”
Now, he has a gold medal and several Olympic records. He bettered the previous decathlon benchmark in three of the 10 events — with a 10.12-second sprint in the 100-metre dash, a leap of 8.24 metres in long jump and a clocking of 13.46 seconds in the 110-metre hurdles.
Kevin Mayer of France ultimately scored silver with 8,726 points, while Australia's Ashley Moloney earned bronze with 8,649. There had been hopes of a decathlon double for Canada, but Pierce Lepage wound up fifth, still impressive for an Olympic rookie with a torn patellar tendon in his right knee.
Warner, it's worth noting, was fifth at London 2012, his first trip to the Summer Games. He earned bronze in Rio in 2016.
“When I was younger, my mom told me, `You can do anything you set your mind to',” said Warner, who welcomed his first child in March. “And it's true. I've showed myself that today.”
In an interview that lasted nearly 20 minutes, the class-act decathlete didn't mention himself all that often. He instead gushed about his family, about the support of Leyshon and Dave Collins in the stands, about Dennis Nielsen and his other coaches back home, even about his rivals.
“This is the hottest Olympics of all time, and these last two days were crazy to manage,” Warner said. “I mean, when we were out there in pole vault, every single time I would pick up the pole, it was burning. I'd have to go on the ground to move my mark and I'd burn my knee. It was like, `What are we doing?' And then we'd go in the shade and the shade is hot ... What are you supposed to do when the shade is hot?
“But it's Gar and Dave, the staff at Athletics Canada for bringing the ice vest and getting us the water and the electrolytes and lugging the luggage around and sticking to the bus schedules and all that. I'm out there competing for 10 different events, but those guys are working really hard behind the scenes. Gar had his little pedometer and I think he walked 25,000 or 30,000 steps today, and I imagine Dave walked 60,000 steps. It's crazy to me to think that I'm just one individual and I've had so many people throughout my whole life, my whole career, do whatever they can to make my dreams come true.
“I don't know why I'm so privileged and so lucky to have so many people support me, but I promise I won't take it for granted.”