Damian Warner failed to clear the bar in the pole vault on Saturday, which dropped him from second to 17th in the decathlon standings.
Poleaxed by pole vault.
And while Damian Warner took it straight to the gut, it also impaled his heart.
Would not talk. Could not talk.
As the evening decathlon session began, DNS (did not start) suddenly appeared next to the name of the Olympic defending champion on the giant scoreboard at Stade de France. A statement shortly thereafter from the Canadian Olympic Committee confirmed that Warner had withdrawn and there would be no media availability.
Cut down and eviscerated by the dreaded “no heighting” in the pole vault: a big, fat zero, which is every decathlete’s worst nightmare.
“Understandably, Damian and his team are devastated,” the brief statement continued.
Reassurances had been given earlier in the day that Warner would indeed continue, distraught as he was. Even if there was diddly chance he’d achieve his sweet dream of becoming only the third man to cop Olympic double gold in the decathlon, after Americans Bob Mathias and Ashton Eaton and Britain’s Daley Thompson.
The stones that it would have taken, though, to face inquisition from reporters after tumbling instead from second to 17th in one fell swoop. I can’t admonish him for it.
With three events left and strongly in medal contention (gold, why not?) — but staring down a pole vault he’d chosen to set at 4.60 metres, with a complicating headwind, when he usually starts that segment of the gruelling 10-event discipline at 4.50.
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