Ashton Eaton is the Olympic champion again. Eaton defended his gold medal win in London with closely contested win in the decathlon in Rio on Wednesday and Thursday.
Rio 2016: Aston Eaton wins 2nd consecutive gold in men’s decathlon
The world record holder added another gold to his resume.
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Eaton scored 8893 points in the decathlon, the 10-event competition that is spread out over two days in which athletes are awarded points for their result in each event. (Here’s a look at the scoring.) He tied the Olympic record.
Kévin Mayer of France won bronze with 8834 points and Damian Warner of Canada won the bronze with 8666 points.
Eaton led by only 44 points heading into the final event, needed to beat Eaton by seven seconds to pass him for the gold.. The race for bronze was intense. Germany’s Kai Kazmirek would have passed Warner for the bronze if he ran six seconds faster than the Canadian, but Warner held him off.
Eaton ran 10.46 seconds in the 100, long jumped 26’0.5, threw the shot put, a 16-pound iron ball, 57’2.25, high jumped 6’7 and ran 400 meters in 46.07 on the first day of competition. One day later, Eaton ran 13.80 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles, threw the discus 149’3, pole vaulted 17’0.75 feet, hurled the javelin 196’1 and, after all that, ran 1500 meters (about a mile) in 4:23.33 to clinch the gold medal.
It wasn’t a world record performance, but Eaton already owns that record. In fact, he’s broken it twice.
Eaton’s wife, Brianne Theisen-Eaton of Canada, won bronze in the women’s heptathlon. Not a bad haul of hardware for track and field’s first family.
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