PERFECTLY GOLDEN
Canada’s Derek Drouin celebrates his victory in high jump at the Rio Olympics on Tuesday. The reigning world champion didn’t miss a jump en route to his winning leap at a height of 2.38 metres.
From the time he was a kid growing up in the tiny Ontario town of Corunna, Derek Drouin always wanted to jump.
But he never did it with more focus, brilliance and meaning than Tuesday night. The 26-year-old became Canada’s latest gold medallist at the Rio Games in clinical fashion at Olympic Stadium, clearing every bar he approached while the competition was on.
From the opening clear at 2.20 metres, when there was so much air between his rump and the bar, to the winning jump of 2.38 metres, there was little doubt he would win Canada’s third gold in Rio, a history-making result accomplished so spectacularly.
“I was definitely gunning for the big one,” said Drouin, the reigning world champion and an Olympic bronze medallist four years ago in London. “I was confident in my preparation, but also I just love the Olympics and taking in the whole moment. The last couple of days I’ve been feeling so confident. It’s been awesome to try to find my place in history.”
Let’s start the historical recount with this: By soaring to the top of the podium, Drouin became the second Canadian ever to win high jumping gold at the Olympics and the first since Duncan McNaughton in 1932 in Los Angeles. Drouin is also a leading force in the Athletics Canada resurgence, becoming the first from his country to win a track-and-field gold since sprinter Donovan Bailey at Atlanta in 1996, a dry run of two decades.
On Tuesday, after missing on the attempt to break the Olympic record of 2.39 to give the crowd a little something extra — but with the gold already in his pocket — Drouin let the focus drain from his face and replaced it with joy as he wrapped himself in the Canadian flag.
Tears spilled as he greeted his parents and sisters in the stands moments after victory was secure.
“I’ve grown up wanting to be an Olympian,” Drouin, who now lives in Toronto, said. “As I’ve become an elite athlete, that’s obviously shifted to wanting to be an Olympic gold medallist.
“There have been some sacrifices, but I’ve always prided myself on my mental toughness. I was ready for anything.”
That mental toughness was in full effect Tuesday. There wasn’t a moment that anyone in the halffilled stadium could have made a case for anyone else winning.
In qualifying and in the final, Drouin cleared every jump he attempted, except for the encore attempt at the record. And he did so with such ease that it had to be discouraging to the others, including silver medallist Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Bohdan Bondarenko of Ukraine, who collected bronze.
“The kid’s a gamer — there’s no doubt about it,” Drouin’s coach, Jeff Huntoon, said moments after the victory was secured. “We don’t sit around and do a lot of projections and stuff like that. We just know when we’re fit — and he had shown that.”
The gold continued Drouin’s remarkable rise through the sport, following on the heels of the bronze medal he collected at the London Games in 2012 and gold at the world championships in Beijing last summer. His resume is getting crammed now, with gold in the 2014 Commonwealth Games and another at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto last summer.
It was Canada’s third track and field medal in Rio, joining Brianne Theisen-Eaton, who won bronze in the heptathlon, and Andre De Grasse, also a bronze medallist in the 100 metres.
As well, Drouin became the first Canadian man to win a gold in any summer event since paddler Adam van Koeverden hit the top of the podium in the men’s K1 500-metre sprint in 2004 in Athens.
“My story began in Corunna, Ontario where I jumped from monkey bars,” Drouin wrote on his official Twitter account earlier this year. “Now I’m jumping over bars all over the world.”
And better than anyone else who’s trying.
I was definitely gunning for the big one. I was confident in my preparation, but also I just love the Olympics and taking in the whole moment.