ASHTON-EATON-DECATHLON-GOLD-081113.JPG
After the decathlon's punishing gauntlet of 10 events, Ashton Eaton stood tall as the world champion.
(The Associated Press)
Several weeks after
in London,
sat on a stool in downtown Portland. In a sports world in which most athletes must overcome failure, and setbacks, and obstacles, I asked Eaton, "How do you deal with failure?"
Mind you, this was the world's greatest athlete. A guy who had set the world indoor decathlon record, and
, and won gold going away at Olympic Stadium. He jumped higher, ran faster and threw objects further than anyone else on the planet. And when I asked him about failing, he looked puzzled.
"Failure? I don't think about it. Let me put it this way: Not succeeding never crosses my mind. I never thought once about not succeeding in London."
A gentleman sitting nearby, listening in, heard Eaton, and said, "I think about failing every single day."
in the decathlon in the world championships in Moscow on Sunday. He finished the 10-event competition with 8,809 points, and told reporters after, "It feels good. It was the last thing I had left on my list to do. Now, I've done everything there is to do in multi-events."
He's 25 years old, just got married, and is about as gracious a competitor as anyone who ever wore a pair of track spikes.
Also, I believe he's not only the world's greatest athlete, but the finest all-around athlete this state has ever produced. I'd put Eaton on top of a mountain of great NBA players, Pro Football Hall of Famers, a college Heisman Trophy winner, Olympic medalists, World Series champions, and college stars. No knock on anyone who was born here or grew up here and went on to great athletic achievement, but I think Eaton is establishing himself globally in a way only Bob Mathias and Daley Thompson, the only men to win back-to-back Olympic golds in the decathlon, might have understood.
Dan O'Brien is probably the best direct comparison. He won gold in Atlanta in 1996 and was a three-time world champion in the decathlon. But Eaton's marks are superior, and he feels headed to bigger things.
We're not talking about a star athlete who simply runs fast and jumps high. We're talking about an athlete who is running circles around the world's other best athletes and making it look easy. Eaton is that good, and that cool, and while sponsors Nike and Coca-Cola have boosted his profile with some marketing, Eaton feels like he's just breaking the surface and is about to blow up on a global scale.
The Olympics in 2016 become a fascinating chase for Eaton. Only Mathias and Thompson have doubled up. Eaton will be 28 when those games arrive. So while we wait, one question: Is Eaton the greatest?
Apologies to Mel Renfro, Terry Baker, Dan Fouts, Steve Prefontaine, Dale Murphy, Ahmad Rashad, Terrell Brandon, Anna Marie Lopez and anyone else from Oregon, but yeah. Eaton, born in Portland, is the greatest athlete this state has ever produced or developed.
Eaton only thinks about succeeding. There's wisdom in that. It's not that failure isn't an option for him, it's that he won't allow himself to visualize and dwell on defeat. He won't accept it, and refuses to bask in a pool of negativity. Also, he once told me that he refuses, too, to think about how other athletes are performing around him during competition. He finds focusing on what he can't control distracting. Instead, he's locked into his own performance.
It's not that Eaton doesn't ever fail. He just doesn't really think about not succeeding.
In fact, Eaton struggled in Day 1 of competition in Moscow, particularly in the high jump. He didn't let that distract him; instead, he locked in for the 400 meters, and then, promptly ran the final event of the day in 46.02 seconds -- the fastest anyone has ever run that distance in a decathlon at the world championships.
Sunday, in the 110-meter hurdles, Eaton clipped the second hurdle with his foot. Didn't let that slow him, either. He just kept running and won the event in 13.72 seconds. Then, afterward, he gave interviews and sounded like a guy who had just wandered in on the track and accidentally won.
Eaton said in a news conference, "It's just good to finish with the decathlon guys, they are a great group of guys, anywhere we compete, whether it's the world champs or the Olympics. It's just great to finish with them."
He's not finishing with them. He's out front, and has been for a while now.
-- John Canzano