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RIO 2016
2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games

Ashton Eaton repeats as decathlon gold medalist

Paul Myerberg
USA TODAY Sports

RIO DE JANEIRO — Having missed on his first two attempts at 4.90 meters in the pole vault, Ashton Eaton was aware of what stood in the balance should he fail to succeed in his third try at the height.

Ashton Eaton celebrates his second consecutive decathlon gold.

“That was the moment I thought, all right, your whole life has been about this,” he said. “Get ready. What are you going to do?”

He’d clear the height. In the next event, the javelin throw, he faced a similar dilemma: Eaton hated his first toss and was only moderately pleased with his second.

His third, at 59.77 meters, was good enough.

And he entered the final event of the decathlon, the 1,500 meters, with only 44-point lead on Kevin Mayer, a 24-year-old Frenchman with designs on upending the decathlon’s status quo.

Mayer put Eaton “to the test,” he said. So he ran the 1,500 in 4:23.33, fourth-best among competitors, to seal his second gold medal.

“I’m glad I passed the test,” Eaton added.

In a discipline where little seemed to come easy, where third attempts “got dicey,” where Eaton had his fair share of ups and downs — relatively speaking — the world’s greatest all-around athlete still won gold, in the process tying the Olympic record with 8,893 points.

No, it wasn’t easy. Eaton simply makes it look like a breeze.

“I wasn’t nervous,” he said. “I was willing to run myself into the hospital if I had to.”

He placed himself in elite company: Eaton joins the USA’s Bob Mathias (1948 and 1952) and Great Britain’s Daley Thompson (1980 and 1984) as the only two-time decathlon winners in Olympic history.

“The decathlon is exclusive company,” Eaton said. “I’m just happy to be part of the family, the decathlon family. To be with the other two-time gold medalists is great, but it’s great to just be a decathlete.”

Add two golds to his growing collection of hardware, which includes two World Championships and three heptathlon titles in the Indoor Championships, the latest coming in his home state of Oregon in March.

In doing so, Eaton has staked a strong claim for being the greatest decathlete of all time — and in turn, for being viewed among the greatest athletes to ever participate in the Olympic Games.

To his coach, Harry Marra, there’s no question. Eaton is the greatest, he said.

“It’s historic. I wish the rest of the world understood that. Repeating in the decathlon? Repeating in the decathlon? When so many things can go wrong? That’s impressive.”

And in a way, this gold was the most meaningful. It will be the final Olympic Games for Marra, who tutored not only Eaton but his wife, Canada’s Brianne Theisen-Eaton, who took bronze in the women’s heptathlon.

It was a far more difficult grind toward gold than during the London Games: “I’m glad that this wasn’t the easy walkthrough, Eaton said, quickly adding, “I guess the decathlon’s never an easy walkthrough.”

It’s these moments — fending off a stiff challenge, a less-than-perfect performance to still claim gold — that only increase Eaton’s legacy.

“I think it’s clear. You win the Olympics, you win the World Championships, you own the world record,” said Vin Lananna, Eaton’s coach at the University of Oregon.

“He’s got everything he could possibly be. But what the résumé will not show is how wonderful a young man he is. There’s no line in the résumé for that.”

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