Ed Gordon for the IAAF
8 August 2001 – Edmonton –When Tomas Dvorak won his first World Championship decathlon crown in Athens in 1997, it was only the first strike the Czech had planned on the Dan O'Brien's ten-event empire. Two years later, he added another world title and also surpassed the American's seven-year-old world record.
Now, Dvorak has three World Championships victories to his credit with a 8902-point total in Edmonton, the third-best accumulation in history and a World Championships record. This has moved him even with O'Brien's win total, and the 29-year-old Dvorak most likely already has his eye set on breaking this tie at the Paris World Championships in two years' time.
But just a Chunnel ride away from the City of Lights, Britain's Dean Macey also has similar plans. And the two may very well be on a collision course at the top level.
Add a healthy version of new world record holder Roman Sebrle to the mix, and the Stade de France may see fireworks worthy of the biggest Bastille Day celebration ever.
But that's not until 2003. Here in Edmonton in 2001, the seeds of the next global showdown were sown.
As the two-day competition unfolded, one was struck by the tenacity of Macey, who was competing in only the sixth complete decathlon of his young but already fruitful career. A full ten-eventer is so rare for him that he probably keeps an additional coach on hand just to remind him what the events are.
At the end of the first day, Macey had a one-point lead on Dvorak, who by comparison was halfway through the 39th decathlon of his sporting life. With 4638 points, Macey was 92 points better than his surprising start in Seville. It was shaping up as a battle of youth versus experience.
Of course, experience is always supposed to win out, as it did this time.
But even in his bronze medal 8603-point accumulation, a personal best, the 24-year-old Brit proved to be unflappable, posting personal bests in five consecutive events before just falling short in the pole vault.
"I told my coach coming here that I'm better than an 8500 man," bubbled Macey to the assembled press, in reference to his 8567 Sydney tally. "I've got a medal in my pocket, and that's better than last year (fourth place in Sydney). That's what this year was all about."
Macey was also hobbled right from the start, as he tore an adductor in the 100 metres.
"I had a superb medical team behind me. They massaged it, and gave me quite a few injections. And I hate needles. I actually took a needle 'down there', he grinned, gesturing towards the "restricted" area.
Even with this medical handling, his support team considered pulling him out of the competition after the first day. Macey would have none of that. How could he explain that to his mates at the pub next week?
For Dvorak, the Edmonton competition was mostly about re-establishing his pre-eminence in the decathlon fraternity, a position he had held since the 1997 World Championships in Athens, with only a pair of significant glitches in the interim.
One bump in his "deca-road" was the Sydney Games, won by Estonia's Erki Nool, the silver medalist here. The other was the Gotzis meeting this past June, captured in historic fashion by Dvorak's training partner Sebrle, who became the first to surpass the 9000-point level with his 9026 total. That honour can only come to one athlete, Dvorak realized, and he missed it.
Recapturing the world record he lost to Sebrle was never on Dvorak's mind in Edmonton. "Absolutely not."
But considering that the three events he considered to be off-target cost him roughly 140 points in a most conservative calculation, it's obvious that he was performing at world-record level in the other disciplines.
The high points of the Czech's two days were a PB in the long jump--an 8.07, only his second jump over eight metres in a decathlon--and the pole vault, where he equalled his lifetime best of 5.00, set in his first world win in Athens.
But there were other telltale datapoints in the final chart which demonstrate how Dvorak bounces from one World Championship to another for his best performances. His 400-metre time was his fastest since Athens, and his hurdle clocking the best since Seville.
"Between each World Championships, I always had problems," said the Czech. "That included the Olympics last year. But now I'm OK, and I'm happy with the outcome today," he said.
"This year has been one totally without pressure," he continued. "I came here hoping to score 8700 points, but as the two days went on, I could see myself moving forward to 8800 and eventually [after the pole vault] 8950 or 9000. Unfortunately, the wind made the javelin impossible for everyone."
Competing in the points gap between Dvorak and Macey was Olympic champion Nool. His short-lived lead disappeared after Dvorak's stellar long jump, and the Estonian found himself battling Macey the rest of the way for the silver.
It was the pole vault, traditionally one of Nool's strongest events, which permanently moved him into the second spot and consigned Macey to the bronze. Nool's 8815 aggregate was personal best--obviously an Estonian national record--and had the dubious distinction of being the highest non-winning total ever.
"I came here with the possibility of winning," said an obviously unsatisfied Nool. "Certainly Roman Sebrle was the favourite going into the competition, but as we saw, things didn't go according to those expectations."
Sebrle--the "other" Czech--was handicapped throughout the two days by calf and adductor injuries reportedly sustained at the Francophone Games in Ottawa in late July. He was competing in a few selected events there as a tuneup for Edmonton.
Of significance among the non-medallists was the rise of a pair of "twentysomethings". Attila Zsivoczky of Hungary--son of the Mexico Olympic hammer champion Gyula--finished fourth with 8371, and the third Czech, Jiri Ryba, was sixth in 8332. In another two years, they will be only 26 and 27, respectively, and may also be ready to join a then-26 Macey in challenging the decathlon king pins for the world title.
