WARNER’S LEAP OF FAITH
Decathlete bitten by flu bug fourth after five events
Canadian Olympian Damian Warner slipped in the long jump in the decathlon at the world championships in London, where he arrived among the favourites for gold. Warner has work to do on day two — but there’s hope after a strong finishing kick.
LONDON— Canada’s Damian Warner is the fastest man over 100 metres to ever compete in the decathlon, so when he blasts off the line he’s not used to seeing anyone in the lanes beside him.
“(Friday) I saw the whole field. I was just like, ‘What is happening?’ ”
This wasn’t at all how he imagined things would go when he stepped off the track at the Rio Olympics last summer with a bronze medal and a renewed determination to get to the top step of the podium here at the world athletics championships.
He’d battled to a bronze at the worlds in 2013, cruised to a silver medal in 2015 and now, surely — with the retirement of world-record holder American Ashton Eaton — this would be his time to show the world what he could do and finally win the gold.
He was sure he had a chance right up until three days before his event.
That’s when Warner — one of Canada’s top medal prospects coming into these championships — fell ill with the flu bug, suspected to be Norovirus, that has affected people at the team hotel.
That changed everything and the 27-year-old from London, Ont., had to dig incredibly deep just to remain in sight of the podium.
He was sitting fourth after the first day of his two-day, 10-event discipline.
“I woke up in the morning and felt a little nauseated, and my stomach was in a little bit of pain,” Warner said. “I went to the track and did a workout and I was feeling warm and dizzy and very uncoordinated.”
A visit by the team doctor Tuesday afternoon led to a quarantine that only allowed him to return to the track for a training session on Thursday, the day before his event.
“I felt terrible and still wasn’t over it fully (Friday), but I’m hoping that with some sleep that I can come back and feel like a brand new Damian on (Saturday),” he said, mustering a smile Friday night.
Speed has always been Warner’s greatest strength, but at the start of the day it just wasn’t there for him and he crossed the 100-metre line in 10.50 seconds.
It was still the fastest of all the decathletes here, but quite slow for him — his personal best is 10.15 — and it meant that instead of starting the day well clear of his greatest rivals, he was ahead by just seven points.
Things got worse. After the long jump and shot put, he had dropped to sixth place.
To succeed in the decathlon means mastering 10 run, jump and throw events but, really, there’s an 11th skill that underlies them all: confidence, and that’s easy to lose after a series of bad events. And when that goes, it really is all over.
But despite the fatigue, and the overwhelming feeling of unfairness at being laid low by something as uncontrollable as a flu bug going around the hotel, Warner rallied. Over the next two events, the high jump and 400 metres, he pulled himself back to fourth place, just 14 points from the top three.
“Going into the 400, I was a little bit leery and worried about how I’d feel,” Warner said of the final event of the day.
Still, he told coach Les Gramantik that he’d go out hard and see what he had left.
“The time was a season’s best somehow, so I’ll take that,” Warner said of his 47.47-second clocking.
Now, Warner just has to muster the energy for five more events Saturday: the 110-metre hurdles (another event he’s the world’s best decathlete in), discuss, pole vault, javelin and the 1,500 metres.
“I want to get on the podium. It’s looking, right now like it’s going to be awfully difficult,” Warner said.
France’s Kevin Mayer, who took silver in Rio, finished day one in the lead and looking strong, followed by Germans Kai Kazmirek and Rico Freimuth.
“My second day … is the place that I can have the most improvement,” Warner said, referring to the more technical events that he hasn’t been as strong in.
“I’m going to keep saying it until it happens and I’m just hoping that (Saturday) I can put it together,” he said. Also Friday: Canadian Melissa Bishop qualified for Sunday’s 800-metre final after running second in her semi.
Crystal Emmanuel, the first Canadian woman in 34 years to make the 200-metre final, finished seventh in 22.60 seconds.