Damian?Warner, the son of a Barbadian, wasn’t shy about expressing his feelings after capturing a bronze medal for Canada in what is considered international track and field’s most gruelling event, the decathlon.
“This is such a great feeling, all the hard work my coaches and I put in the last couple of years,” said Warner after he took third place at the just ended World Championships in Moscow.
“In 2011, I finished 18th [and when I] saw the three medallists running around the track with their country’s flags draped over their shoulders, I told my coaches that I want that to be me.”
Warner, whose father Kevin Warner lives in Barbados and his Canadian mother Brenda Gillian resides in Ontario, went into the World Championships with high expectations, recognizing the last time Canada won a medal in the decathlon was in 1995 when Michael Smith earned a bronze.
After the first day of this year’s competition he was in fourth place and let it be known he “wasn’t happy” and vowed he would go out on the second and final day “swinging and that’s what I did.”
“I stuck with it. I was motivated to get on the podium and I just let it carry me through the events,” he said.
Actually, he clinched the bronze with a 10th place finish in the 1 500 metres in four minutes, 29.97 seconds, which pushed his total to 8 512 points, which was less than 114 points off the Canadian national record of 8 626 points held by Smith.
Earlier in the day, Warner had catapulted himself into medal position when he threw the javelin 64.67 metres. He gained 808 points, which moved him ahead of Germany’s Rico Freimuth, but still short of world record holder Ashton Eaton of the United States, who took gold with 8 809 points and Germany’s Michael Schrader, the silver medallist with 8 670 points.
Warner’s bronze in Moscow capped a banner year. After finishing fifth at the London Olympics in August last year, he won the event at the Hypo meet in Austria in May. Next was the top spot at the Canadian track and field championships in Moncton when he scored 8 145 points.
The performance in Moscow proved him right when he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation two months ago that he always believes he can improve in each event.
That feeling is shared by Smith, whose national Canadian record he is chasing. After Warner mounted the podium in Russia, Smith, the bronze medal winner 18 years ago, said the Bajan-Canadian’s feat showed the record he holds is going to be eclipsed soon.
“He’s on track to beat it. He’s much faster than I was and that really helps in most of the events. If he has any weakness, it’s in the technical events, but that’s just because of his age. He has a lot of time to improve,” said Smith.
Smith told a Toronto newspaper that 23-year-old Warner, who is six-feet tall and 183 pounds has some key assets – his speed and style as a decathlete. The same holds true for the American Ashton Eaton, the gold medal winner.
“What’s really important about both Ashton and Damian is that they bookend that extremely fast 100 metres with a very solid, some would say exceptional 1 500 metres. Humans aren’t supposed to be able to do both,” Smith remarked.
