Ashton Eaton has defended his Olympic decathlon title, equaling the games record with a surge on the last lap of the 1,500 meters – the last event in the two-day competition.
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Dalilah Muhammad kept the USA total ticking with gold in the women’s 400-meter hurdles and Ashley Spencer added a bronze, with another American 1-2 in that race only just thwarted by Denmark’s Sara Slott Petersen.
Success and failure makes them appreciate the struggles that go into their athletics careers. With just the clock and the crowd for company, the Americans took the baton around in 41.77 seconds to reach the final.
“We were laughing and joking out there”, said English Gardner, who ran the anchor leg.
“By the way, never said I was retiring, just unlikely I’ll go to 2020”. “So it definitely puts in the back of your head just making sure you stay on both feet, and make sure none of that happens to you”.
The Frenchman need to beat Eaton by seven seconds in the final event – the 1,500 meters – to take the title.
Mayer, who took silver with 8,834 points, edged out Canada’s Damien Warner, who claimed bronze. Canada’s Damian Warner took the bronze.
Alongside Eaton’s triumph, Ryan Crouser led an American one-two in the shot put, also setting a new Olympic record of 22.52 meters to win his first major title from world champion Joe Kovacs. Valerie Adams won three medals in the women’s shot put, taking gold in 2008 and 2012 and silver in Rio.
Eaton needed to finish no less than six seconds behind Mayer to clinch the gold medal.
Wednesday produced an “awesome hour” for the US track team, according to Tianna Bartoletta.
Eaton had briefly darted away from the decathlon in the morning session to congratulate Clement as his teammate knelt exhausted in the midday sun after the 400-meter hurdles final.
He also thanked his coach, his family and “all those who believed in me”.
“The opponent is stronger than me”, Yoshida said after the match, according to the USOC. Clement was so confident of a first Olympic individual gold, he had his mother, Claudette, bring a star-spangled banner so he could drape it over his shoulders. I can’t help thinking the high school track athletes I cover have numerous new heroes to admire and emulate should they have it in their heart to pursue dreams as big as what we’ve seen become reality this week. “I felt somebody”, Clement said.
Nobody can match the US star when it comes to the decathlon – and there was no one in this field who was ever going to stop him from retaining his Olympic title.
Four of the finishers produced national-record times, including Tumuti and Copello.
Eaton highly praised Bolt and said he was happy just to be in the same pages of the Olympic book as him. With Bolt focusing on the 200 final – part 2 of 3 for him in Rio – the Jamaicans qualified for the 4×100 final.
Bolt is expected to make his final Olympic appearance Friday in the 400 relay final where he and Jamaica are two-time defending champions. Once people see how tough it is, they get a lot more excited. “I mean, these guys, they’re pretty excited”, Powell said.
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“My throwing has been bad in the past, but I really got after the discus and shot here”, he added.
