Decathlete Damian Warner aims for Rio gold
Canadian's main competition is U.S. world-record holder Ashton Eaton
By Callum Ng, CBC Sports
Damian Warner's first decathlon was a terrible experience.
It was back in 2010. The weather was pouring rain, windy, and cold. "I thought I was miserable," Warner recalled. "It was a rough competition for me, but after, someone said that I had a lot of potential in the event and clearly they were right."
Now, Warner is one of the world's best at track and field's gruelling 10-event spectacle. And he'll get a chance to prove it this week in Rio. The men's decathlon takes place Wednesday and Thursday, beginning at 8:30 a.m. ET each day.
In the six years since that first miserable competition, the 26-year-old has rocketed from a talented newbie to a two-time world championship medallist.
He's done it while training in the relative calm of London, Ont., his hometown.
Two of his coaches, Gar Leyshon and Dennis Nielsen, are teachers at his high school where he started track. "They've learned track and field as I've learned. We've been together from the start and it's pretty cool how far we've come and the amount of knowledge they've both learned since we started," said Warner.
In 2011, Warner won his first national decathlon title and finished in 18th-place at the world championships.
The next summer, at his first Olympics, he rose to fifth. A surprise 13-place improvement against many of the same competitors from the world championships a year prior.
Warner would earn his first worlds podium in 2013 with a bronze, yet one of his hallmark achievements would come in the summer of 2015.
At Toronto's Pan Am Games, he finally broke Michael Smith's 19-year-old Canadian decathlon record, en route to winning the event. The following morning, during a media appearance at a Toronto hotel, Warner was weary, relieved, and happy.
Damian Warner, the decathlon upstart had become Damian Warner, the established.
And he did it amidst controversy. The Pan Am decathlon ended only five weeks before the higher-profile 2015 worlds, considered the absolute minimum recovery time.
Warner had publicly expressed how badly he wanted to perform in front of his family and friends, so he competed at Pan Ams against conventional wisdom.
"It means a lot that I was able to get that, but also to be able to share that will all those people," said Warner.
Warner recovered just fine for Beijing, taking the silver medal at worlds by re-breaking his Canadian record.
American Ashton Eaton won the event by breaking his own world record. The two are friends and Eaton is married to Canadian heptathlete Brianne Theisen-Eaton (a Rio medal threat herself). Warner will occasionally train with the two of them in Oregon.
After his 2015 silver in Beijing, Warner said of Eaton's performance, "I'm glad I was a part of it and got to see what it takes to break the world record. I believe I'm capable of doing that too, as an athlete that motivates me."
It's clear the two world-class decathletes think highly of one another. "We're both pushing each other," Eaton told CBC Sports.
"I know that he's constantly wanting to be on the top of the podium, but he's made such good improvements, amazing improvements in such a short period of time," Eaton added.
If Warner is to take the next step to the top of the podium in Rio he'll have to beat Eaton, a once-in-a-generation athlete. As good as Warner has become, Eaton is on another level. Yet in his quietly determined way Warner seems to believe it's possible to get there.
"In 2012, the gap was a lot bigger and since then the gap's slowly been closing. I'm hoping that it's going to continue to close and I'm going to continue to get a little bit closer, so when it comes to Rio that we're able to actually fight for the gold medal," said Warner.