At 36, 2020 Olympic decathlon champion Damian Warner eyes Commonwealth Games as next step toward L.A. 2028
Each time Canada’s Damian Warner takes to the track and field for competition, he’s rewriting what longevity in his sport looks like, pushing his physicality to the limits.
At 36 years old, Warner is doing what nobody has ever done in the decathlon — competing at the highest level of the 10-event competition this late in life.
He was the oldest Olympic champion ever when he won gold five years ago in Tokyo at 31 years and 274 days old. Warner set an Olympic record on that historic day in Tokyo in August 2021, amassing an astonishing 9,018 points.
And he’s still at it.
There’s a reason nobody other than Warner has made it this far — five events one day, five events the next day. It grinds down athletes, ends careers early, oftentimes leads to injury, or just simply becomes too mentally taxing for athletes to want to go on.
But for nearly two decades Warner has shown up each day with a burning desire to get better, to test the limits of what his body is capable of doing, all in the search of one day completing the perfect decathlon.
The 36-year-old Canadian decathlete talks about taking his career year-by-year and whether or not he’ll aim to be competing at the LA 2028 Olympic Games.
Nobody would question Warner if he were to shut it all down right now. He’s a father of two young children. He’s won countless international medals. And the decathlon requires all of an athlete’s attention.
He also suffered an Achilles injury ahead of the world championship in Tokyo last September. It was the first time in his career he wasn’t able to get to the start line for a competition he intended to participate in.
It would have been a logical time to call it quits. Instead, Warner has locked in perhaps more intensely than any other time in his career. He says he still has something to prove.
“I don’t think that I’ve accomplished everything that I can on the track. I think that I could still score higher than I’ve ever scored. And what keeps me coming back is just trying to be the best that I can be,” he told CBC Sports in an interview. “And I don’t think I put that product out there yet. There are just so many things as I go on that need to improve.
“But the cool thing for me is that sitting here now, like the events that need to be where they are, they’re there. The speed, the power, the explosiveness, those are all where they need to be.”
Just a couple of weeks ago Warner competed in the prestigious Hypo-Meeting in Götzis, Austria — he’s won the event an unparalleled eight times. It was his first competition back after last season’s injury.
Warner finished fourth, scoring 8,497 points. Some athletes would have been pleased with their first foray back after injury. Not Warner.
“I didn’t have the result that I wanted. But at the same time, I was happy to be back on the track, happy to be competing again because last year was so painful not being able to compete,” he said. “My expectations are always super high. I train to be the best that I can be. I trained to win. I am trying to go out there and try to put on a personal best performance every single time.”
Despite the disappointment, Warner feels there were glimpses and signs that all the pieces are there to return to peak from.
This week, Canadian athletes are in Ottawa for the national trials competing for spots on the team to compete at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow July 23-Aug. 2.
Warner has already secured his spot by virtue of his fourth-place finish at Götzis and has received a medical exemption from competition, allowing him to skip the trials and prepare for the Commonwealth Games.
It’ll be a full circle moment for Warner. The 2014 Commonwealth Games were also in Glasgow. It’s where Warner won his first major international gold medal.
“It was my first time standing on top of the podium and hearing the Canadian national anthem. And I was just like, you know, I can do this. I showed myself that you can do this at a very high level. And I think that that kind of changed my mindset,” he said. “And it’s crazy to think that it’ll be 12 years later. So I’m excited just going back.
He was 24 years old back then. A lot has changed.
Inevitably it’s going to come up because I’m 36 years old and it would annoy me a little bit. But now that I look back on it and I’m still able to compete, it’s something that I’m proud of the most because most people aren’t able to compete when they’re 36 years old.– Damian Warner
His age is going to come up in every interview, every conversation at every competition he attends from here on out. It’s been the case for a couple of years now. Warner admits it bothered him last season. Now he’s learning to embrace it.
“Inevitably it’s going to come up because I’m 36 years old and it would annoy me a little bit. But now that I look back on it and I’m still able to compete, it’s something that I’m proud of the most because most people aren’t able to compete when they’re 36 years old,” he said. “I believe that when I go into a competition and I’m healthy, I can compete with anybody in the world. I’m still one of the fastest decathletes out there. I can still jump far. I can still throw far.
“There’s a lot of things that I can still learn and I don’t believe that when I step onto the starting line, my competitors think like he’s over the hill. I think that they look at me and they’re like, you got to watch out for him because if he’s on and he’s healthy, he could beat anybody. And I truly believe that too.”
Naturally, one would then wonder if Warner has it in him to go all the way to the L.A. 2028 Olympics.
It would be his fifth Games. And he would be 38 years old. Warner has been asking himself the big questions about it all, keeping himself accountable for all the work it entails.
“I told myself after the Olympics in 2024 that I was going to take it year by year just to make sure I can do a little check in each of those years to see if the body is feeling good. Do you still enjoy the sport as much as you have in the past? And are you willing to put in the work that is required to be the best?” he said.
“If I had to say right now, I would be going to the Olympics in 2028. But at the same time, I want to respect my decision that I made in 2024 and just give myself the time after this year to really sit down with my family and say is this what we want to do for the next two years? And if that’s so, then we’ll try to go there and compete the best we can.”
His longtime coach Gar Leyshon doesn’t flinch when asked if Warner will be in L.A.
Look at what he’s accomplished. Is anything unreasonable at this point? I don’t think so.– Gar Leyshon, Warner’s coach
“Absolutely, one hundred per cent. I don’t have any doubts. We don’t talk about it a lot, but when we do talk about it, it’s a serious thing. The expectations and the goals are sky high. And people have criticized me especially in the past for setting what they think are unreasonable goals,” Leyshon said.
“But look at what he’s accomplished. Is anything unreasonable at this point? I don’t think so.”
Leyshon says these past few seasons have been especially trying, pointing to the injury at the 2022 world championships, then bowing out in Paris after not being able to clear the bar in pole vault, and then last year’s Achilles injury.
In some respects, Leyshon feels all of those disappointments are providing extra motivation for Warner to go on.
“I think this is in some ways is what’s driving him. I think maybe if he had had a great result in Paris, you know, who knows? But I think he’s driven and in part by those failures. And I mean, that’s the beauty of the decathlon. And maybe it’s sport and in general,” Leyshon said.
“We talk about the roller coaster of the decathlon and trying to stay off the roller-coaster. But over the course of his career, it’s been a giant roller coaster ride and it continues.”
Warner is intentional about everything in his life, including putting the stadium of his next major competition on his phone’s screensaver, reminding him each time he looks at it what he’s showing up at training for.
He has the Commonwealth Games venue on it now, eyes squarely focused on what’s coming. After that, it’ll likely switch to Beijing’s stadium, where next year’s world championships will be held.
Should he continue on, that next screen saver will be the Memorial Coliseum in L.A. for his last Olympics.
“A long time ago, I set out to try to put the perfect decathlon together. And yes, it’s 16 years later and I feel like I haven’t been close.”
“It’s one of those things where we’ll keep searching for it, we’ll keep working towards it. And hopefully when it’s all said and done, I can say like, you know what, this was the perfect decathlon. But right now, I’m still looking for that.”
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