Damian Warner of Canada reacts after missing attempts during the men's decathlon pole vault event at the Stade de France on Aug. 3.Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
Shortly after losing at the previous Summer Olympics to Damian Warner, France’s Kevin Mayer defined what they both do for a living.
“The decathlon is pain,” a devastated Mr. Mayer said. That was his second consecutive Olympic silver.
On Sunday, after he’d no-heighted in the pole vault the day before, Mr. Warner tried to explain that ethos himself. He’d failed to make a single jump, toppling out of a medal spot and then dropping out of the competition. From a gold medal to a DNF – this man has now traversed the entirety of the Olympic experience.
By Mr. Warner’s telling, a few small things had gone wrong in the biggest moment. He’d had an encouraging practice and convinced himself that the height he chose to start at – 4.60 metres – was doable.
But in the hour between practice and the real thing, the winds had literally shifted. Good conditions turned bad. Only a handful of his colleagues reached their usual heights.
On his second jump, Mr. Warner stuck his pole in a slot in which another competitor had left a plug. He was allowed to jump again, but that undermined his confidence.
In hindsight, he said he should have changed to a shorter pole, but he didn’t do that. Then the opportunity was gone.
“Yesterday, I was quite emotional,” he said. “At the same time, I can’t dwell on that forever.”
At this point, 24 hours had passed.
By now, everyone knows Mr. Warner’s made-for-TV-movie backstory. How he was a basketball player and long jumper in London, Ont., until two high-school teachers convinced him to enter the esoteric realm of all sports.
Using information gathered from the most cutting-edge training resources, such as YouTube, they all figured out how to turn one very athletic young man into the greatest all-around athlete in the world.
In Tokyo, Mr. Warner reached the summit of amateur sport – decathlete champion at an Olympic Games. Then he did the hardest you can do in his line of work – try to bend lightning so that it hits the same spot twice. And it had blown up on him.
So here he was, starting out with, “This isn’t quite the press conference I expected to have …”
For much of his remarks, Mr. Warner was as he usually is – warm, thoughtful, detail oriented. Few athletes of his calibre are better at explaining what they do, both granularly and philosophically.
But when he began to veer into what this all means to him, he began to lose it just a little. His eyes got glassy and he began gulping hard.
“All the important people I have in my life are from this sport.”
Gulp.
“To say that I’m a four-time Olympian is a really cool thing. Because I never thought that I’d get to one.”
Gulp and a pause.
Those emotions Mr. Warner talked about only surfaced for a moment, so you could only guess at their depth.
In the totality of an Olympics, Mr. Warner’s disappointment will not make much of an impression. Plenty of people are disappointed here. Winners get to talk about winning forever, but losers only get one chance.
It was here that Mr. Warner said something you don’t hear in sports. Something about the masochistic nature of a great athlete, or any other sort of great artist. In order to be the best at something, you have to be willing to punish yourself.
Some may have thought leaving the competition was a sort of giving up. Mr. Warner sees it differently.
“I think to 2018 when I went to the Commonwealth Games. I no-heighted in the pole vault. I had this idea to continue, but ultimately I decided to drop out – this may sound crazy – but that’s the most painful thing to do. Not finishing the decathlon.
“When I drop out of a competition after a mishap like the pole vault, it’s tough. It’s really hard on me. But that gives me the best opportunity to grow.”
So Mr. Warner didn’t give up on the decathlon. To his way of thinking, continuing would have been easy. He described how afterward, he might’ve been able to tell himself that he did well. He finished X or Y points off the lead. If he hadn’t messed up just a little, he might be a medalist.
“I don’t think that’s fair,” he said. “I didn’t perform well on that day, and I have to suffer the consequences.”
In other words, Mr. Warner chose pain.
You don’t see much obvious pain at the Olympics, but no one you’re watching on TV would be here without an absolute ton of it.
Getting up early and never taking a weekend off. Travelling half the year. Putting your life on hold. Asking the people you love to pick up your slack. All those missed memories.
Anyone who’s ever set aside the beauty of a regular life so that they can reach for a professional goal knows that pain.
In the midst of it, Mr. Warner could already see how Saturday’s failure informs the successes of the past. You can’t appreciate one without the other.
He’s 34. The obvious question: Is this it?
Mr. Warner talked about meeting Toronto Raptor great Vince Carter. Still a big basketball guy, that must have been a real moment for him.
He asked Mr. Carter when he knew it was time to quit. Mr. Carter’s answer: “When my love of the sport dies.”
Mr. Warner had that conversation with Mr. Carter in 2016. At that point, Mr. Warner was 26 years old.
He’d either just won or was about to win a bronze at Rio 2016. The best part of his career still lay ahead.
To choose that as the question you want to ask one of your idols tells you something about the man. This is someone who thinks a little differently than the average bear.
Mr. Warner said he will continue until next year’s world championships. From that point on, he’s going year by year.
For right now, he will take some time to explore the limits of bittersweetness, in a way that should comfort anyone anywhere doing anything.
“I’ve been able to have tears of joy, but also tears of pain,” Mr. Warner said, smiling gently. “One way is better than the other, but that’s life. … You have to live it.”