Injured in the back on the first day of the decathlon of the Tokyo Games, the French athlete sought courage for a silver medal.
Second consecutive Olympic podium for Kevin Mayer. So sure, it’s not gold. The decathlon world record holder won the silver medal at the Tokyo Games on Thursday, the same one won five years earlier in Rio. Canada’s Damian Warner wins the title with 9,018 points, the fifth-highest scoring in history and first above 9,000 at the Games. Mayer completed his decathlon with 8,726 points.
Injured in the back, the 29-year-old sportsman, head of French athletics, began with great difficulty Wednesday the first tests of the competition, until bursting into tears after his 100 meters (10.68 seconds) , his long jump (7.50 meters) and the shot put (15.07 meters). “I am very, very far from what I can do”, he then declared, while assuring that he was going to “to beat” despite a “bitter taste”.
“It did not give up”
A few anti-inflammatory drugs later (the first in five years, he confessed), the French, lagging behind his competitors, caught up with dazzling delay, notably beating his personal best in the javelin (73, 03 meters) this Thursday. “I did test after test, I didn’t know when it was going to fail. It did not give up “, he reacted to the cameras.
But this silver medal remains tinged with disappointment. In Tokyo, Kevin Mayer was aiming to win the only major title missing from his record. This is his third consecutive failure in a major championship after his two withdrawals at Euro 2018 (after a zero lengthwise) and at the 2019 Worlds in Doha (due to injury).
His medal is the 27th won by the French delegation in Tokyo.
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