Damian Warner of Canada wins the initial 100-meter decathlon event.
Damian Warner of London, Ontario, the reigning Olympic decathlon champion, takes first place in the men’s 100-meter race with a timing of 10.24.
Olympic champion Warner, in fourth place after the first day of the decathlon in Paris
As the Olympic decathlon enters its second day, Damian Warner thinks it’s preferable to be the hunter rather than the prey.
The London, Ontario, native placed fourth after five events on Friday at the Stade de France, capping the first of the competition’s two days. Her total score was 4,561 points.
With 4,650 points, Leo Neugebauer of Germany is first on the scoreboard, followed closely by Ayden Owens-Delerme of Puerto Rico (4,608) and Sander Skotheim of Norway (4,588).
“Tomorrow, I’m a chaser, and I begin with the hurdles, which is my strongest event. You only have to make a great entrance and proceed.”
The 110-meter hurdles will kick up Day 2 on Saturday morning, while the 1,500 will wrap up on Saturday night.
Warner, 34, is aiming to win the Olympics again after breaking the record with 9,018 points in Tokyo three years prior.
With a maximum throw of 14.45 meters, he finished 10th out of 11 in his group after struggling with his shot put. He had started out brightly with the 100. Warner admitted that over the years, he has been inconsistent with the event.
“There’s a lot of ups and downs, a lot that I can pick at and wish I could’ve been a little bit better,” Warner stated. “That’s the decathlon for you, there’s gonna be some ups and downs, some ebbs and flows but the cool thing about the decathlon is it’s not done in one day, it’s done in two.”
“You have to change your mindset and kind of leave it in the past or else it can be like an anchor and pull you down,” he stated. “There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it—the shot put was not excellent. You just have to go on and not let that bother me because, you know, it sucked.”
In the men’s 10,000 meters, Moh Ahmed of St. Catharines, Ontario, began his fourth Olympic Games in fourth place.
With a few laps remaining, the 33-year-old retained the top two positions after recording a season-best time of 26 minutes 43.79 seconds. But in the last lap, he lost ground, missing his first-ever podium finish in an Olympic or world championship race.
He said, “I ran that as well as I could.” “I felt great, I covered every single move. My body obeyed my commands to move each time with remarkable efficiency. Because this race featured eight of the top fourteen all-timers, or something like that, I knew it was going to be really difficult.
However, due of the depth, this was the fastest 10,000-meter race ever held. This year, I put in a ton of work, and my only goal was to win a title. I believe I ran that race quite well; I simply ran out of gas in the final 50 meters.
Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda won gold with an Olympic record of 26:43.14, followed by Berihu Aregawi of Ethiopia in silver (26:43.44) and Grant Fisher of the United States in bronze (26:43.46).
Next Saturday, Ahmed will participate in the men’s 5,000, a race in which he placed second at the Olympics in Tokyo and third in the 2019 World Championships.
World champion Ethan Katzberg secured his spot in the men’s hammer throw final on Sunday earlier on Friday.
Throwing 79.93 meters, the native of Nanaimo, British Columbia, led Group B. In addition, Rowan Hamilton of Chilliwack, British Columbia, qualified first in Group A with a personal best throw of 77.78 meters.
With a throw of 84.38 meters, this year’s world record and the longest in 16 years, hammer thrower Katzberg leads the world rankings. The 22-year-old, who made waves in 2023 by taking home the gold at the world championships in Budapest, Hungary, is competing in his first Olympics.
In the women’s 100-meter event, Audrey Leduc of Gatineau, Québec, shattered her own national mark with a time of 10.95 seconds to win Heat 4 and go to the quarterfinals on Saturday.
