Reigning Olympic champion Warner in fourth after Day 1 of decathlon in Paris

PARIS — Damian Warner believes it's better to be the hunter than the prey heading into Day 2 of the Olympic decathlon.

The London, Ont., native finished the first of two days of the decathlon in fourth place on Friday at Stade de France with 4,561 points after five events.

Germany's Leo Neugebauer holds the top spot on the leaderboard with 4,650 points, with Puerto Rico's Ayden Owens-Delerme (4,608) and Norway's Sander Skotheim (4,588) right behind.

"You either have a feeling of catching up or a feeling of kind of fending off all the competitors," he said. "Both positions have a pressure but it's a lot easier to be the chaser than be the person in the front."

"I'm a chaser tomorrow, I start off with my strongest event, the hurdles. Just gotta come out strong and go from there."

Day 2 will begin Saturday morning with the 110-metre hurdles and end Saturday night with the 1,500.

The 34-year-old Warner is looking to repeat as Olympic champion after setting a Games record of 9,018 points in Tokyo three years ago.

He started out strong with the 100 but took a hit with his shot put, finishing 10th of 11 in his group with a top throw of 14.45 metres. Warner acknowledged he's been inconsistent with the event over the years.

"There's a lot of ups and downs, a lot that I can pick at and wish I could've been a little bit better," Warner said. "That's the decathlon for you, there's gonna be some ups and downs, some ebbs and flows but the cool thing about the decathlon is it's not done in one day, it's done in two."

"You have to change your mindset and kind of leave it in the past or else it can be like an anchor and pull you down," he added. "Shot put was not good, there's no ifs, ands or buts about it. It's just kind of like, it sucked, now you just gotta move on and don't let that mess me up."

Moh Ahmed of St. Catharines, Ont., kicked off his fourth Olympics with a fourth-place finish in the men's 10,000 metres.

The 33-year-old ran a season-best time of 26 minutes 43.79 seconds and held a top-two position with a few laps left. However, he fell behind in the final stretch to miss out on his first-ever podium finish in the race at an Olympics or world championship.

"I ran that as well as I could," he said. "I covered every single move, I felt really good. Every time I commanded my body to move, it responded really well. I knew this race was gonna be really, really tough because it had eight of the top 14 all-timers or something like that.

"But this was the fastest 10,000-metre race ever because of the depth, ... I worked really, really hard this year, all I was looking forward to was a championship. ... I think I executed that race really, really well I just didn't have anything left in the last 50 (metres)."

Uganda's Joshua Cheptegei earned gold with an Olympic record (26:43.14), Ethiopia's Berihu Aregawi took silver (26:43.44) and the United States' Grant Fisher grabbed bronze (26:43.46).

Ahmed will compete in the men's 5,000 next Saturday, an event he won silver in at the Tokyo Olympics and bronze at the 2019 world championships.

Earlier Friday, world champion Ethan Katzberg booked himself a ticket into Sunday's men's hammer throw final.

The Nanaimo, B.C., native threw 79.93 metres to lead Group B. Rowan Hamilton of Chilliwack, B.C., also qualified with a personal-best throw of 77.78 metres to pace Group A.

Katzberg is the top-ranked hammer thrower and owns the world-leading mark this year at 84.38 metres, also the world's furthest throw in 16 years. The 22-year-old is making his Olympic debut after breaking out in 2023 by winning gold at the world championships in Budapest, Hungary.

Audrey Leduc of Gatineau, Que., broke her national record with a time of 10.95 seconds in the women's 100 to win Heat 4 and qualify for Saturday's semifinals.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 2, 2024.

Abdulhamid Ibrahim, The Canadian Press