RIO DE JANEIRO – Let’s try to appreciate what Ashton Eaton just accomplished. But where do we begin?
How about the shower? Eaton took a cold one Thursday evening, after completing the ninth of 10 decathlon events, the javelin. To track observers, Eaton had virtually clinched his second straight Olympic gold medal— France’s Kevin Mayer needed to beat Eaton by seven seconds in the 1,500 to beat him, and Eaton is faster than Mayer.
But Eaton was not an observer. He was an athlete, drained by the most difficult event of the Olympics, maybe in all of sports.