PARIS — If Damian Warner could go back and do it all again, he would have used a different pole.
After passing on four lower heights during the pole vault event of the Olympic decathlon, the reigning champion made his first pole vault attempt at 4.6 metres, a height he has started at before in major competitions. He’d just had a solid warm-up and was confident he could clear the bar.
But in the 45 minutes between his warm-up and first vault, conditions changed. The wind was swirling. The headwind was stronger.
Warner knocked the bar on his first attempt. On his second run up he planted his pole and the plug from another athlete’s pole ricocheted out of the box. Warner was allowed to redo the attempt and, in hindsight, that‘s when he wishes he had swapped to a shorter pole. That might have given him the opportunity to rely on sheer athleticism and technique to muscle him over the bar.
“I think that if I was able to do that, then I would have been able to just get myself into a rhythm. I maybe would have missed the next height, but then I would have, just through attempts, been able to kind of figure things out and get myself going,” Warner said at a press conference Sunday, one day after he logged three failed attempts at pole vault and dropped out of the Olympic decathlon competition.
“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do that. I kind of just kept banging my head against the wall at the same pole over and over and it didn’t work. And you would think that if you’ve been doing this sport this long, then you’d be able to kind of have tools in your tool box to deal with that circumstance. But yesterday was a tough day, not only for myself, but a lot of pole vaulters in that decathlon.”
Warner was not the only decathlete who no-heighted Saturday. Two other athletes, including Sander Skotheim of Norway who’d been sitting in third going into the pole vault, failed to score points in the event.
“Going into that pole vault, it looked like it was going to be one of the greatest decathlons of all time,” Warner said. “And then after that pole vault, it looked like a lot of people were now looking to get on the podium when they’d thought that they had no chance. But that’s why the decathlon is so cool.”
Norway’s Markus Rooth ended up taking gold in a national record of 8,706 points. Leo Neugebauer of Germany (8,748) took silver while Grenada’s Lindon Victor (8,711) was third.
Warner had finished the first day of decathlon in fourth place after struggling with the shot put, but started the second day strong by topping the field in the 110m hurdles, which vaulted him back to the top of the leaderboard.
The 34-year-old was sitting in second place after the discus throw when he took to the field for the eighth event: the pole vault. By registering three consecutive Xs by his name with a long pole on a windy day, he failed to record a height and subsequently scored zero points. A few hours later he dropped out of competition.
It’s not the first time Warner has bowed out from a decathlon in international competition — not even the first time he has withdrawn following no heighting in the pole vault. He dropped out of the 2018 Commonwealth Games after failing to clear 4.5 metres in three attempts. And, a year after winning gold in Tokyo, he withdrew from the 2022 world championships on day one after suffering a hamstring injury during the 400 metres.
Those experiences have taught Warner that dropping out of a decathlon is “the most painful thing to do” — which is why he had to do it on Saturday.
“I pride myself on finishing decathlons. But, at the same time, I pride myself on being consistent. So when I drop out of a competition after a mishap like pole vault, it’s tough, and it’s really hard on me, but that gives me the best opportunity to grow, because I don’t want that feeling to happen again,” he said. “It’s so easy to go into the last two events and throw the javelin well, and run the 1,500 well, and be like: ‘Oh, if I would have just jumped 4.60, I could have won a gold medal, or a bronze medal, or a silver medal. And I don’t think that’s fair. I didn’t perform on that day, and I had to suffer the consequences. And I just had to be better, and I wasn’t good enough yesterday.”
As for what’s next? Warner plans to chase an elusive world championship gold in Tokyo next year.
“But after that, it’s just going to go year by year,” he said. “I still love the decathlon. I feel like I still have so much to improve on in the sport. I plan on doing the sport until that goes away. I hope it’s not any time soon.”