Damian Warner rewrites olympic history

Athletics experts are losing their minds over Damian Warner’s performance in the Tokyo Decathlon. Sports scientists might accurately say what he did was an order of magnitude greater than a single event gold. And in fact, what Warner achieved would have got him in the finals or on the podium in at least a couple of the individual versions of the decathlon’s ten events. But those are details in the face of the two real headlines. First- Warner scored over 9000 points. In the history of his sport- which is either 140 years old or ten times that age, depending on who you argue with, only three people had managed that tally before yesterday. And not one of them at the Olympics, until Warner battled the field, and enervating heat to deliver 9018 points. The other headline only needs four letters. GOLD. No Canadian has ever done that in Decathlon. Warner is happy to acknowledge all the above. Just don’t make him wear the ‘world’s greatest athlete’ label. That traditional accolade for the Olympic Decathlon champion fits the London, Ontario man better than it does anyone else, but Warner is not given to that kind of swagger. As he says to Anastasia, all he really wants now, after two days of beyond- intense competition, is to get home and make funny noises for his baby boy Theo.