Dry overcomes the pain to clinch magnificent bronze
● Medal glory for Scot who was once told he would never compete again
The raw anaesthesia of an adrenaline was all that stood between Mark Dry and pure, unhinged agony yesterday. It’s funny the extraordinary becalming effect that earning a Commonwealth Games medal can produce. Fuelled by painkillers and a personal verve, the 30-year-old matched his bronze in the hammer throw of Glasgow 2014 by brushing king-sized chips off both shoulders and then launching into the great sunny beyond.
Since his maiden Olympic appearance in Rio, the Scot has battled both his body and the system and seemed predestined to end up slain on the floor. Two hip reconstructions came with the expert advice that he would never compete again. Losing his Lottery funding was accompanied by the vibe that his prime had been and gone.
Yet here, despite a back that ached to the max and a torn labrum held together by an internal stitch or two, Dry pulled a season’s best effort of 73.12 metres out of his bag in the very final round, trailing Cumbrian Nick Miller who became the first Briton to go beyond the 80-metre mark with Australian Matt Denny taking silver.
“I will never give up,” the Highlander declared. “I either was going to medal or bomb out and get it in the cage. There are no half-measures.
“You can’t go easy. You’ve got to go for it. I had to put everything into it. I could not have done a centimetre further than that here. My discs are popping out. My back’s a mess. But it’s not about rankings. It’s not about what people threw three weeks ago. It’s about here.”
He will fly home from here to go under the knife for a third time. It will be a slow and torturous trip. Retirement may be the consequence. Overpowered here by emotion, he will not want to finish, even on this unexpected high. “I know I’ve done something really bad here,” Dry revealed. “But I can return from a third one, the docs said I could. There are no guarantees, though, until I get back. I just won’t be on finding. People might say I should focus on my life. But this is my life. There’s no reason I can’t make it through again.”
Miller magnificently set a benchmark of 80.26m with his fourth attempt to extend his UK best but Chris Bennett was a polar contrast to Dry, fighting back the tears after finishing tenth with a best of 65.22m, four years after coming last in Glasgow when it felt his world had fallen apart. “It’s hard to take,” he said. “I said to myself after the first throw, ‘don’t f ****** do this again’. And I did.”
Today, Eilish Mccolgan and Steph Twell open up in the 1500 metres heats and Beth Potter, fatigued from two triathlon races already, goes in the 10,000m final.
Meanwhile, Jake Wightman’s ambitions to double up here have been eased after he was handed just two rounds in tonight’s 800m semis with only the final to follow.
And, although his heaviest focus is on the 1500m later this week, the 24-year-old wants to take a leaf out of Edinburgh club-mate Chris O’hare’s book and begin to claim major medals.
“You’ve seen over the last few years Chris just got way more consistent, which is one thing I sort of need to start doing, because last year definitely wasn’t that,” said Wightman.
“I don’t know if that’s the years he’s got on me, or whether it’s just him learning from mistakes in the past, but I definitely want to become more like that. I hope with that I become a lot better racer and have more success.”