O’Brien Vaults To Another Title Decathlete Finishes Strongly To Take World Championships

Dan O’Brien started poorly, wobbled in the middle and finished strongly to clinch his third World Championships title in a row in track’s toughest event, the decathlon.

If he had jitters before the pole vault, O’Brien didn’t show it. Three years ago, three no-vaults prevented O’Brien from going to the Olympics. Early Monday, a strong one launched him to his third title.

The American rebounded from a shaky start and a slow opening 100-meter race with a strong performance on the second day of the grueling two-day, 10-event competition.

“I am happy with the third gold medal, but not with my performance. I was probably 300 points below what I had expected here,” said the Moscow, Idaho, resident.

“But the 9:30 a.m. start both days is incredibly early, and the 3-hour break each afternoon was too long. It was tough for everybody,” he said. “I don’t think anybody was happy with their scores here.”

O’Brien, 29, trailed by 107 points in second place at the end of three events, but had recovered enough for a slim lead of 47 points at the end of the first day.

Despite failing to win a single discipline outright the second day, O’Brien had huge scores in the 110-meter hurdles and the pole vault to make sure of his victory.

He collected a total of 8,695 points, enough to be the best in the world this year, although below his world record of 8,891.

Eduard Hamalainen of Belarus won the silver with 8,489, and Mike Smith of Canada took the bronze with 8,419.

O’Brien clocked 13.73 seconds in the hurdles, after losing the lead to Hamalainen over the last two hurdles. The American looked well in control of the race until he chopped his stride before the seventh and then before the ninth.

The performance was enough to earn O’Brien 1,003 points to take his total to 5,531 after six events, giving him a 108-point lead.

With a throw of 163 feet, 11 inches in the discus, Hamalainen moved into second place ahead of Chris Huffins, the American who led O’Brien by 107 points after three events.

But the best of the discipline came from Smith, whose 166-9 moved him up to fourth place.

In the pole vault, there was no embarrassing repeat of the 1992 U.S. Olympic Trials, when O’Brien failed to score a height and didn’t make it to the Games at Barcelona.

This time he soared to 17-3/4, only 2 inches short of his best, to take his points total to 7,309.

Hamalainen, who placed fifth in the vault at 16-8-3/4, stayed second with 7,139, but only two points separated Huffins and Smith, who went 15-1 and 15-9, respectively, with the javelin and 1,500 to go.

Huffins faded in the last two events and dropped back to eighth overall.

Smith vaulted over Huffins in the javelin by throwing 211-6 for 805 points, while the American threw only 188-3 for 698 points.

O’Brien, safely in the lead, threw 206-4 for 782 points. Hamalainen lost any realistic chance of upsetting the American when he managed a throw of only 183-4 for 676.

That left O’Brien leading by 276 points before the 1,500, and Hamalainen needed to beat the American by more than 40 seconds in the last race. He was faster by only 12 as O’Brien jogged home, raising his arms in triumph as a cool dusk fell over the Ullevi stadium.

“I had pretty good hurdles, but I let my nerves get the better of me in the discus,” O’Brien said. “I was pretty worried after that. But the pole vault went very good. … But the javelin was probably the key.”

Hamalainen said any of three medalists could have won. “We all had our problems and the best one won,” he said.

O’Brien said Hamalainen was probably the only decathlete right now who could challenge his world record.