A MOUNTAIN TO CLIMB
With just three events left, medal favourite Theisen-Eaton finds herself in sixth place
A year ago in Beijing, Brianne Theisen-Eaton walked away from a disastrous Day 1 at the world track and field championships and answered, “I don’t know” to every question posed by reporters.
“Do you think maybe you’re just not cut out for this?” one scribe finally asked.
She replied that she didn’t know, but regrouped the next day to jump from fourth place to second and claim silver in the heptathlon.
This time around, on the Olympic stage, the gold-medal favourite sits in sixth place heading into the final three events on Saturday — 186 points back of leading Jessica Ennis-Hill of Great Britain.
But there was no hesitation when asked this time around if she feels like she is cut out for this — if she belongs.
“I feel like I belong here,” Theisen-Eaton said with a smile. “I really do. I feel like I belong here and I’ll come back tomorrow and give it my all.”
It’s going to take her all to climb back into contention after a day that started shaky and ended slow for the woman with the best heptathlon score in the world this year heading into these Games.
“I feel OK,” she said. “I don’t want to say that wasn’t the start that I wanted. Obviously, it was an up-and-down day.”
All her life, Theisen-Eaton has struggled to stay level through the ups and downs. But heptathletes require the ability to shake off bad events much like baseball pitchers have to bounce back from horrible innings. There’s so much time to think, so much time to secondguess.
So Theisen-Eaton dedicated much of the last year to toughening up under the guidance of mental performance consultant Penny Werthner.
The 27-year-old looked tight Friday morning, biting down on her lower lip before the hurdles race. Her parents say they can tell how she’s feeling by the way she walks and swings her hair. They used to know how her practices went by the way she said hello before even closing the door behind her.
On Friday, Theisen-Eaton needed to quickly close the door on the hurdles — an event she was supposed to crush. The world championship silver medallist stumbled to a sixth-place finish in 13.18 seconds. Her personal best is 12.93 seconds.
“I kind of wanted a faster time than that,” said Theisen-Eaton, who took comfort in her coach pointing out that only one athlete — Olympic champion Ennis-Hill — came in under 13 seconds.
She tried to refocus her thoughts on the positive before moving onto the high jump. That’s where she came unglued last year in Beijing.
This time Theisen-Eaton soared over the bar at 1.86 metres for the third-best clearance of her career. But Ennis-Hill bettered her again, with a jump of 1.89 metres.
Rising star Katarina JohnsonThompson, also of Great Britain, tied with Nafissatou Thiam of Belgium for the highest jump of the day at 1.98 metres. Still, TheisenEaton moved up a spot into fifth overall.
“I got over the Beijing hump,” Theisen-Eaton said of the event that derailed her gold medal hopes at the world championships.
The Canadian remained fifth overall through the shot put, with two throws of 13.45 metres, to finish eighth in what she considers a tough event.
In the 200 metres, TheisenEaton lagged behind the leaders and finished seventh in her heat.
Ennis-Hill went to bed Friday night in first place with 4,057 points. Theisen-Eaton is a shocking sixth at 3,871 points. Thiam (3,985 points) is second and Akela Jones of Barbados (3,964 points) is third.
Heptathlon is a long and exacting event, consisting of 100-metre hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200 metres, long jump, javelin and the 800 metres. Theisen-Eaton said she tends to perform better on the second day of competition.
“My Day 2 is really good,” Theisen-Eaton said. “My long jump, I’ve kind of figured out the javelin this year and if I have to run a fast 800, I can do that. So I’m just looking forward to getting a good sleep and starting off tomorrow new.”