Eaton was one of four American athletes to take gold in track and field events Thursday.
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The “awesome hour” of the night before had evolved into a pretty great 24 hours for the U.S by Thursday night. However, the Americans won an appeal because they were bumped by a Brazilian runner causing the mishap. Mayer climbed into second from third with a personal best of 5.40.
“We were laughing and joking out there”, said English Gardner, who ran the anchor leg.
“Our relationship helps us because we understand what each other are doing, like physically and mentally”, said the American two-time world champion.
World champion Eaton finished with 8893 points, incredibly matching exactly the Olympic record after 10 lung-busting events.
Bronze went to Damian Warner after he overtook Kazmirek on Thursday, the fastest time in the 110m hurdles key to the Canadian’s place on the podium.
Mayer’s score of 8834 points set a new French record and has only been bettered by five other athletes, including Eaton and Thompson. The 23-year-old Crouser recorded the three best throws of his career, starting with 22.22 on his second attempt to take an early lead and improving it to 22.26 before his biggest shot of the night on his fifth attempt.
Eaton won one of four USA gold medals on a day the victorious Americans had to concede the stage to a boundless Jamaican who joined Michael Phelps and Ray Ewry as the only Olympians with double threepeats.
Eaton had 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. “I am probably the last person who would want to be involved in anything like this”.
“They gave me something to shoot for”, he said. Kerron Clement also won his first individual Olympic gold in the 400-meter hurdles. “We had a flag at home and I told her to bring the flag”.
Delighted with his efforts in setting a new French record of 8,834 points, silver medallist Mayer said: “Being a decathlete for me is to enter in to a circle”.
“To win two Olympic golds in a row like [Great Britain’s] Daley Thompson is very special”, Eaton said.
Muhammad’s US teammates avoided a nightmare in the 4×100 relay. Clement won in 47.73 seconds, just 0.05 seconds ahead of Boniface Mucheru of Kenya. A night after sharing a memorable smiling moment with Usain Bolt while crossing the finish line, the Team Canada sprinter earned the silver medal in the 200m event with a time of 20.02. Concentrating on not messing that up for Bolt, a Jamaica team led by Asafa Powell got into the final, but only finished second in their heat behind Japan.
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Veteran Asafa Powell just wanted to make sure that Bolt got the chance to run in the final on Friday. “But I don’t think he has believed it is going to happen, so now he has gone and made it so public that I definitely have got to do it”.
