Olympic champion Ashton Eaton retires
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| © Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - AUGUST 18: Ashton Eaton of the United States celebrates winning gold overall after the Men's Decathlon 1500m on Day 13 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Stadium |
Just months after defending his gold medal in the decathlon at this past summer’s Rio Games, American decathlete Ashton Eaton announced his retirement on Wednesday with a statement posted to his web site, calling it “my time to depart from athletics.”
The statement, posted to www.teroes.com, came alongside a similar announcement by his wife, Brianne Theisen-Eaton, who took bronze in the heptathlon in Rio.
It’s time “to do something new,” wrote Eaton.
One of the most decorated decathletes in Olympic history, Eaton, 28, is one of only three two-time gold medalists in the discipline, joining the USA’s Bob Mathias (1948 and 1952) and Great Britain’s Daley Thompson (1980 and 1984).
Four years after taking gold in the 2012 London Games, Eaton’s performance in Rio (8,893 points) tied the Olympic record. He also owns the overall world record (9,045 points), set at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, and the world record in the heptathlon (6,645 points), set in Turkey in 2012.
“It’s historic,” Eaton’s coach, Harry Marra, said following his gold at this past Summer Games.
“Frankly there isn’t much more I want to do in sport,” Eaton wrote. “I gave the most physically robust years of my life to the discovery and pursuit of my limits in this domain. Did I reach them? Truthfully I'm not sure anyone really does.
“It seems like we tend to run out of time or will before we run out of potential. That makes humanity limitless then, as far as I'm concerned. And I think that's inspiring.”
Olympic champion Ashton Eaton retires from decathlon
Just months after defending his gold medal in the decathlon at this past summer’s Rio Games, American decathlete Ashton Eaton announced his retirement on Wednesday with a statement posted to his web site, calling it “my time to depart from athletics.”
The statement, posted to www.weareeaton.com, came alongside a similar announcement by his wife, Brianne Theisen-Eaton, who took bronze in the heptathlon in Rio.
It’s time “to do something new,” wrote Eaton.
One of the most decorated decathletes in Olympic history, Eaton, 28, is one of only three two-time gold medalists in the discipline, joining the USA’s Bob Mathias (1948 and 1952) and Great Britain’s Daley Thompson (1980 and 1984).
Four years after taking gold in the 2012 London Games, Eaton’s performance in Rio (8,893 points) tied the Olympic record. He also owns the overall world record (9,045 points), set at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, and the world record in the heptathlon (6,645 points), set in Turkey in 2012.
“It’s historic,” Eaton’s coach, Harry Marra, said following his gold at this past Summer Games.
“Frankly there isn’t much more I want to do in sport,” Eaton wrote. “I gave the most physically robust years of my life to the discovery and pursuit of my limits in this domain. Did I reach them? Truthfully I'm not sure anyone really does.
“It seems like we tend to run out of time or will before we run out of potential. That makes humanity limitless then, as far as I'm concerned. And I think that's inspiring.”
‘World’s greatest athlete,’ Ashton Eaton, walks away from decathlon at age 28
Ashton Eaton, one of the greatest track and field athletes the United States has ever produced, announced his retirement Wednesday. The 28-year-old decathlete successfully defended his title at last year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, and he holds the world record for highest score in the multi-event discipline, whose winner is often called “the world’s greatest athlete.”
Also announcing her retirement, on their shared website, was Eaton’s wife, Brianne Theisen-Eaton, who won a heptathlon bronze for Canada at Rio and is the reigning indoor pentathlon champion. The pair met while competing at Oregon and were married in 2013.
Noting that it “has been 10 years” since his first experience in the decathlon, Eaton said, “It’s my time to depart from athletics; to do something new. Frankly there isn’t much more I want to do in sport.”
Eaton has done more than most, considering that, at Rio, he became just the third decathlete ever to repeat as Olympic champion, joining fellow American Bob Mathias (1948, 1952) and Great Britain’s Daley Thompson (1980, 1984). Since coming in second at the 2011 world championships in Daegu, South Korea, Eaton has triumphed in every major international competition, including two world championships and three indoor heptathlon championships.
At the 2015 outdoor championships in Beijing, Eaton set the mark at decathlon with 9,045 points, breaking the world record of 9,039 points he set at the 2012 U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene, Ore. Eaton is just the second man to surpass 9,000 points, joining Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic, and the first to do it twice.
Eaton paid tribute to Sebrle on Wednesday as a childhood inspiration, recalling seeing the Czech champion on the cover of a newspaper with a suggestion that he would be Earth’s representative in an “Interstellar Olympics.” A few years later, someone asked whether Eaton, an Oregon native, wanted to try the decathlon, and the result was a competitor that Trey Hardee, the 2011 world champion, described Wednesday as “the GOAT [greatest of all time].”
“I gave the most physically robust years of my life to the discovery and pursuit of my limits in this domain,” Eaton said on his website. “Did I reach them? Truthfully I’m not sure anyone really does. It seems like we tend to run out of time or will before we run out of potential. That makes humanity limitless then, as far as I’m concerned. And I think that’s inspiring.”
“As the start of the 2017 season drew nearer, I felt more and more resistant to begin training,” Theisen-Eaton said. “I gave the last 4 years everything I could. I put my life on hold. Track and field was the priority before everything else: my family, my friends, my marriage, my future. This is something I chose to do and I don’t regret it for a second. It made me happy to pursue something I was so passionate about.
“But I’ve done it. I went after what I set out to do and whether I achieved it or fell short is not the point. The point is that I know deep down that I gave it every ounce of energy I had and that if I went back and did it all over again, I would not change a thing; I could not have done anything better.”
“In the multi-events, where there are so many pitfalls, they have avoided those pitfalls,” Harry Marra, the Eatons’ longtime coach, who also officiated their wedding, told the Oregonian. “But how long could they go on like that? At some point, something will bite you.
“How many athletes have you seen who were the best in the world who hang on for the extra money or the notoriety, and they don’t do it as well? Something goes haywire. Ash and Brianne can walk away now, satisfied they have done everything they can do to be the best they can be.”
Eaton becomes the third “greatest in their sport” to retire after the Rio Olympics. Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian in history, walked away from swimming after his fifth straight Games. Jamaica sprinter Usain Bolt also announced his retirement from Olympic track and field in August, but he will run at the 2017 world championships in London.
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