Simply, all around, the best

RIO de JANEIRO — Ashton Eaton is, again, the world's greatest all-around athlete.

And so, so much more.

To fully appreciate the gold medal that Ashton won Thursday night after 10 events in the decathlon means to wholly appreciate as well the bronze medal that his wife, Brianne Theisen-Eaton, who competes for Canada, won last Saturday in the heptathlon.

Ashton and Brianne are husband and wife. And way more.

They are a team. One’s success is the other’s.

To read the rest of this column, please click through to NBCOlympics: http://bit.ly/2b2ZP6v

A 4th of July story: Ashton Eaton, the anti-Trump

EUGENE — On this Fourth of July, when we celebrate America and Americans, here’s to a celebration of the U.S. decathlon champion, Ashton Eaton. Not to put too fine a tag on it but: Ashton Eaton is the anti-Donald Trump.

The very last thing Ashton Eaton would have done after winning — again — the decathlon here at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials would have been to proclaim, “I’m going to Rio and my point total is going to be huuuuuge!”

Nor did he say, “I have very big hands.”

As if.

Trump, as this year’s presidential politics has proven, is divisive, bigoted, obnoxious, loud and polarizing.

Eaton’s greatness, the position he has earned on the public stage, has come without him bragging about how great he is. His actions speak volumes. But when he does talk, he does so with intellect, eloquence, humor and, most important, humility.

Moreover, Ashton Eaton isn’t building a wall. He’s building bridges.

Eaton represents the emergence of the multicultural America that Trump, in particular, finds so threatening. Ashton grew up in central Oregon; his father is black, his mother white. As a single mother, Roz Eaton worked several jobs to see after her son, at a law office by day and waitressing at night.

Ashton, 28, and his wife, the Canadian multi-event talent, Brianne Theisen-Eaton, 27, are the model young couple ever mom and dad would like to see their kids grow up to be.

An Eaton story: Ashton and Brianne could drive anything. They drive a white Hyundai Elantra. It gets the job done. There’s no need for more.

The Eatons come by this honestly. It’s not just them. Their coach, Harry Marra, who is one of the most genuine people you might find not just in sports but in any endeavor, drives a 25-year-old white Mazda Miata. “It still looks good, man,” Marra said, laughing.

“It’s a simple statement and I know I have said it a million times,”  Marra said, and referring specifically to Eaton, “Everybody knows he’s a great athlete. But he’s a better human being.”

Another Eaton story: at the Olympics, they stay not in a five-star hotel but in the Olympic Village, he with the Americans, she the Canadians. In London four years ago, he brought her dinner and vice-versa.

Ashton Eaton is the London 2012 decathlon gold medalist. He is the world record-holder in the decathlon, the 10-event discipline that for generations has come to define the world’s best all-around athlete.

In 2012, here at venerable Hayward Field at the 2012 U.S. Trials, Eaton set what was then a decathlon points world record: 9,039.

Last August, at the world championships in Beijing, he upped that to 9,045. He ran the 400 meters in 45 seconds flat.

To give you an idea of how good that is: LaShawn Merritt on Sunday won the open 400 in 43.97.

To further emphasize how good 45-flat that is: Bill Toomey had run the prior fastest decathlon 400: 45.68, in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Bill Toomey!

Eaton, according to the authoritative track and field website Tilastopaja, has the 271st best performance in history in the 400; 147th in the 400-meter hurdles (48.69, in 2014); 191st in the long jump (8.23 meters, or 27 feet, 2012); and 152nd in the 110-meter hurdles (13.35, 2011).

To further amplify Eaton’s excellence in the all-around events, he is the Moscow 2013 world championship gold medalist (8,809 points); the Daegu 2011 world silver medalist; and a three-time world indoor gold medalist in the seven-event heptathlon, 6,470 points in Portland this past March, 6,632 in Sopot, Poland, in 2014 and a world-record 6,645 points in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2012.

It was in Portland that the Eatons, husband and wife, provided one of the sport’s indelible images. After Brianne clinched the pentathlon, Ashton, in his warm-ups amid the long jump competition, bolted onto the track to embrace his wife.

For all that he has accomplished, Eaton’s performance over two days in 2016 at Hayward may have been his best ever.

He was not only hurt. He was hurting.

Coming in, he had a quadriceps problem in his left leg. Then the right hamstring started acting up.

The second-day discuss throw — he fouled on his first attempt, threw just 122 feet on No. 2, which was good for 15th, then moved up to 10th on the third throw with a 135-9.

After that, he went second in the pole vault, fourth in the javelin and wrapped it all up with a fourth-place 4:25.15 in the 1500.

Total: 8750 points.

If 8750 wasn’t a world record, well — none of the decathletes heading to Rio, none of them from anywhere in the world, has a personal best that matches what Eaton did here over the weekend.

Jeremy Taiwo took second with 8425, Zach Ziemek third with 8413.

The nature of track and field — with the potential for injury and collision — is that anything can happen, anytime. That was never more evident than on Monday, when two of the favorites in the women’s 800, Brenda Martinez and Alysia Montaño, collided with about 150 meters to go, at roughly 1:36 in the race, Martinez staggering to seventh in 2:06.63, Montaño limping in to eighth about a minute later after picking herself, 3:06.77. At the finish line, she dropped to her knees in tears.

Kate Grace won, in 1:59.1; Ajee’ Wilson got second, 1:59.51; Chrishuna Williams third, 1:59.59.

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“Anything can happen,” Montaño would say later.

She also said of picking herself up off the track with about 150 meters to go, the others far ahead, “You get up and you’re, like, really far away, and your heart breaks.”

Ashton Eaton has been a model of consistency in a discipline in which consistency is everything.

After so many competitions, he said at Sunday’s post-event news conference, “Mentally, I think what happens when you get older is you have more experience,” adding, “If I’m in a situation in a decathlon, I have confidence I can handle it.”

That was the answer to the first question.

The second had to do with competing while injured.

Then, and this is testament to the kind of person Ashton Eaton is, he said, “I’m not answering any more until these guys get some questions.”

The ladies and gentlemen of the press dutifully asked some questions of Taiwo, who is incredibly thoughtful, and Ziemek, who is super-tough, having done another decathlon at the NCAAs just weeks ago.

“As soon as I crossed the line,” meaning at the final 1500, Taiwo said, “I remembered all those times: this is the hardest journey you’ve ever had. This is a deciding moment in your life, at 26. You know, you’ve had to beg, you’ve had to do this, you’ve wanted to give you, you’ve wanted to not go to practice — just go work at Whole Foods or something, because this hurts.

“Being a decathlete all year round — what are you doing? How are you going to pay for this? Just all that in my mind — I was so grateful.”

When the questioning turned back to Eaton, he was asked about the two charities — Right to Play and World Vision — to which he and his wife donate their time.

“For us, as a young couple to be put in a situation where you get to help someone — that’s pretty powerful stuff.

“The first experience these organizations gave us, what kind of I guess power we have in that area, was pretty emotional. So we feel really strongly about those organizations and organizations in general.”

He paused, choosing his words carefully: “As athletes, you really see a lot of — the Instagram paradigm, where it’s just, ‘Me, me, me, me, me.’ But when you realize [the alternative]: ‘Give, give, give, give’ — it’s very interesting.” Here, he worked hard to control his emotion: “It’s good.”

Eaton was asked, too, the obvious question: what can be done to get the decathlon back to the immensely popular event it once was?

“I think the question to ask is why was it so popular before and what happened to make it fade?

“But — I have noticed things in general tend to follow, like, an up-and-down trend. Perhaps in four years you’ll see decathlon being popular for some unknown reason. And for some unknown reason it started becoming unpopular a while ago.

“I’m not sure what to do to make in order to make it more popular. I think the media tend to have a lot of say in what gets promoted or not. So maybe if you guys — I don’t know. I don’t want to say anything right now but I feel like we train really hard to perform really well. We set ourselves to really high standards. Athletes are always set to super-high standards. What standards are the media setting for themselves? What is it like when you guys compete? Or do you compete at all? It’s an interesting question, a great question.”

The murmur from the assembled press: my friend, have you seen the economic upheaval in our business?

Eaton laughed: “You’re broke, too. So there it is.”

One final Eaton story.

Not content on Sunday with having to answer or forward questions, he decided to play guest moderator, too — another way to direct the spotlight onto the others who, it should be emphasized, had just made the Olympic team, too.

Turning to Taiwo and Ziemek next to him, Eaton asked, “Did you know, like in your mind, did you have the possibility that I could possibly do this? And is there any way you can articulate a possibility becoming a reality?”

Here is the mark of a truly great champion. He brings out the best in those around him.

“To be able to do it,” Ziemek said, “shows how much work I was able to put in and, I mean, doing a decathlon is so great because anything can happen.”

“I think that last statement that Zach made is one that stays in your mind,” Taiwo said. “In a decathlon, anything can happen. After the first day, I felt like, hey, this is going really well. But I still have five more events tomorrow. So I can’t get ahead of myself.

“There are ups and downs. And everybody knows Dan O’Briens’s story for trying to make the 1992 team, in Barcelona. You can be the best athlete in the world, and set the world record later but if you don’t perform at these Trials, the American Trials — these people are the best athletes in the world.”

O’Brien famously failed at the 1992 Trials to clear the bar on all three of his attempts at the pole vault; he didn’t make the team. He would come back to win Olympic decathlon gold at the Atlanta 1996 Games.

“You’ve got to be on it,” Taiwo said. “That now becoming a reality — it just makes every second that you questioned the journey, every second that you questioned if you are too tired or making excuses for yourself, you know it really just blows that all away.

“It makes you say, ‘Hey, I did everything right.’ “

Team Eaton: all that is good in track and field

PORTLAND, Ore. — Ashton Eaton and Brianne Theisen-Eaton are the best thing going in track and field. He won the heptathlon Saturday at the 2016 world indoor championships. She won the pentathlon the day before, her first world title. It’s not just that they win. It’s how they win. With grace. Dignity. Sportsmanship. Respect for themselves, their fellow athletes and the sport.

And with love.

There’s not a lot of visible love in track. With the Eatons, it’s different.

In the instant after Brianne was named the pentathlon winner, Ashton, in his warm-ups amid the long jump competition, bolted onto the track to embrace his wife.

That hug said not only that he knew what she had been through — because he was himself going through it — but how proud he was of her.

In a sport that has generated headlines for years, and intensely in recent months for all the wrong reasons, there is absolutely no question that Ashton and Brianne are emblematic of doing it the right way.

Don't doubt: Ashton and Brianne compete clean. There’s zero reason to entertain even a whisper of a suspicion. Never has been, never will be.

Enjoy this, people.

Better — cherish it.

Because even as Team Eaton stands atop the world, you can see that these 2016 indoors, in their way, may very well signal the beginning of the end.

Assuming Ashton re-qualifies this summer at the U.S. Trials in Eugene, which absent injury would seem a mortal lock, and then goes on to defend his London 2012 decathlon gold medal, the logical question awaits: what’s left to do? If, as seems likely, Brianne wins a medal in Rio, potentially gold, what's left to achieve?

Answer: nothing, really.

And these multi-event competitions are hard, really hard, on the body. He turned 28 in January. She turns 28 in December.

Brianne, who grew up in Saskatchewan and competes internationally for Canada, has lived in Eugene since 2007. She and Ashton went to school there, at the University of Oregon. Coming into this meet, she had won three world silver medals, two outdoor and one indoor.

She won that first international gold Friday night after leaping from third place to first in the final event, the 800, running an indoor personal-best 2:09.99.

Afterward, she said, “Whether it was a gold, silver or bronze, or no medal at all, I would have been satisfied with how I did.”

Asked about having Ashton nearby during competition, she said, “Seeing him calms me down. When you are in a stressful situation, competing at something like this, sometimes you want to give up or [you think], ‘I just can’t handle this pressure anymore.’ But seeing him on the sideline running toward me to help me with something helps calm me down a little bit and being able to celebrate this with him is really awesome and the cherry on the top.”

Ashton is the only combined events athlete in history to have won multiple world titles indoors and out, and to have secured multiple world records indoors and out. And of course that London 2012 gold.

“People call me the greatest athlete in the world and I don't feel like it,” Ashton said here earlier this week at a welcome dinner attended by both local dignitaries as well as staff and officials from the International Assn. of Athletics Federations, track’s worldwide governing body, including president Seb Coe.

“I just feel like the most fortunate person in the world.”

On Saturday afternoon, at the wrap-up of the pole vault part of the seven-event heptathlon, Ashton had the presence of mind to offer a shout-out to the thousands who had stayed at the Oregon Convention Center to watch him and the other athletes slogging through the heptathlon:

“Hey, I just want to say thanks to everybody for hanging out with us,” adding a moment later, “It really means a lot for you guys to stick around."

Last week, at the U.S. indoors, a stray pole vault bar cracked him on the top of the head, opening up a nasty cut that needed needed six stitches. No problem. He carried on, even making fun of it later on Twitter, calling it a “cutscene from a video game” and referring to himself as “#eatonstein.”

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In the 1000 meters on Saturday night, the event that wrapped up the heptathlon, Ashton knew going in he was in no position to set a world record. So instead of having American teammate Curtis Beach pace him for a potential record, it made way more sense for Ashton to push Beach — sixth overall heading into the run — in a bid to get Beach up to third.

Beach ran the 1000 in 2:29.04, a new indoor championships best, Eaton crossing third in 2:35.22.

"I feel like I was going a lot faster than what that clock said, I’ll tell you what," Eaton said after.

Beach ended up finishing fourth, just eight points away from a bronze medal. Mathias Brugger of Germany, who finished second in the 1000 at 2:34.10, ended up third overall, with 6126 points. Oleksiy Kasyanov of Ukraine took second, with 6182.

"I’d rather get fourth with that effort instead of third with a mediocre effort," Beach said. "This crowd was amazing. It was such a fun experience."

In winning the 2016 heptathlon, Ashton became the first three-time world indoor champion. His final score: 6470. No, not a world record. At the same time, Eaton now owns five of the top six heptathlon totals in history.

Asked if his victory measured up to his wife's, Ashton said, still standing on the track, "Honestly, no. I was thinking, you know what, it doesn’t matter what happens to me." Referring to Brianne's triumph, he said, "That made the whole meet for me."

And the entire crowd went, "Aww."

Heading into Rio, Ashton figures to be a big part of the NBC strategy for the Games, along with fellow track star Allyson Felix, swim king Michael Phelps and the gymnast Simone Biles.

The Olympic decathlon (men) and heptathlon (women) hold all the elements for outstanding a two-day reality-TV miniseries. The struggle, whether over 10 or seven events -- it's real.

After Rio, the stage would seem set for Ashton and Brianne to segue to whatever is the next chapter.

Broadcasting. Business. Foundation work. Parenthood.

Whatever.

A few days ago, the Eatons launched a concept called “What’s your gold?” The idea: to “share your journey toward a ‘personal gold’ — running a marathon, starting a business, fostering a shelter animal — whatever that ambition may be.”

After Rio, he — and she — have earned whatever they want to do.

"They help each other tremendously," their coach of six-plus years, Harry Marra, said. "They're a constant reinforcement to each other, and a support system," adding, "It's good to see."

Anyone with even a passing interest in track and field, however, ought to hope that each of them — and, as well, Marra, who is also a world-class person as well as coach — stays involved with the sport.

As things turn out, they may need track and field.

But the sport needs them more.

As their agent, Paul Doyle, told the IAAF website in a feature posted Thursday, “People often tell me that they think Ashton is the greatest athlete in the world. And I say, ‘No, he is the greatest human in the world.’ ”

At that Wednesday evening welcome dinner, Ashton told a story he had never before told in public.

When he was just 7 or 8, in a “small, mostly dirt-filled” little town in central Oregon called La Pine, about a half-hour south of  Bend, Ashton started long-jumping.

Well, not formally. He was just doing what kids do — playing around.

But that play is so fundamental, so essential, to track and field — which, after all, is the foundation of every sport.

Ashton said he would go outside in the yard and find two sticks. He put the first on the ground. That would be his take-off mark. The second he would put out some little distance away, to see if he could jump that far.

When he jumped past that second stick, he said, he would re-set. His new landing spot was where he fixed the second stick. When he passed that new spot, he would re-set again.

And again.

He does something of the same thing now in practice, Marra said. Now it's with ropes -- the second rope set at, say, 25 feet. If he beats that, Ashton says, move it out to 25-6.

In high school, Ashton said, he went for the first time to the Prefontaine Classic at Hayward Field in Eugene, typically a late May stop each year on what is now called the IAAF’s Diamond League circuit.

Crediting his coach at Mountain View High in Bend, Tate Metcalf, for knowing “how to inspire a young athlete,” Ashton said, “He took me to Hayward Field to watch the Prefontaine Classic. I would not be standing here today had I not been sitting in the front row of the grandstands at the Prefontaine Classic that day.

“While I loved running and doing the long jump, I didn't know what track and field could be. But when I went to the Prefontaine Classic, I saw these athletes who were absolute gods and goddesses to me. Not only that, I saw the love and admiration that I just had to give these athletes, that the fans in Oregon were giving to these athletes. I thought, 'I want to be a part of that.'

“Without that event, without seeing the potential of track and field, I don't think I'd be here.

“What you guys do – constantly working, day in and day out – to put something like that competition on, I just can't thank you enough.

“Somewhere in a room like this, people are doing that,” he said. “And little do they know there's this kid jumping around in the dirt whose life will one day be changed because he saw a track meet that these people put on, and the athletes that they were able to host displayed their skills so that this young athlete could be inspired. I honestly can't thank you guys enough.”

Living in the moment: track's It Couple

The world’s greatest athlete is taking his first outdoor runs of the season in the pole vault. His coach, Harry Marra, is here, of course, at the Westmont College track, in the hills above Santa Barbara, California. His wife, Brianne, herself the reigning indoor and outdoor silver medalist in the women’s versions of the all-around event, is here, too, practicing her javelin throws and running some hard sprints.

Ashton Eaton is the 2012 gold medalist at the London Games in the decathlon. At the U.S. Olympic Trials earlier that year, he set the world record in the event. He is the 2013 Moscow decathlon world champion. He is also the 2012 and 2014 gold medalist in the heptathlon, the indoor version of the multi-discipline event. He holds the heptathlon world record, too, and missed setting it again at the 2014 indoor worlds by one second in the 1000 meters.

On this day, a bungee cord takes the place of the bar at 5 meters, or 16 feet, 4 ¾ inches. Eaton takes his practice runs. He doesn’t go one after the other, in sequence. No. He shares pole vault time, and graciously, with a 54-year-old doctor of holistic health, Victor Berezovskiy, and a 77-year-old clinical psychologist, Tom Woodring.

This scene summarizes perhaps all that is both sweet and unsettling about the state of track and field in our world in 2014.

It’s sweet because the fact that Ashton Eaton would so willingly, humbly take practice runs with these two guys speaks volumes about his character. Obviously, neither is coming anywhere close to 5 meters. It’s no problem. Eaton patiently helps them both with their marks. In turn, they watch his take-off points.

Sweet because Ashton Eaton and Brianne Theisen Eaton – he’s now 26, she’s 25 – are, by every measure, track and field’s It Couple. They are at the top of their games. Yet here they are, at the track, just like everyone – anyone – else, practicing. And practicing some more. And then some more, still.

Because, obviously, that’s how you get better. How even the best get better.

It’s hard work that gets you to the top and for those who have seen track and field tainted these past 25 or so years by far too many doping-related scandals, here are Ashton and Brianne, examples of the right stuff. Never say never about anyone. But Ashton and Brianne? So wholesome, Harry says, and he has been in the business for, well, a lot of years, and seen it all, and he adds for emphasis that they don’t even take Flintstone vitamins.

Ashton follows his pole-vaulting with a series of 400 hurdle splits, trying to get the timing down – how many steps between each? 13? All the way around? Does he cut the hurdle? Float? What’s right? She does her repeat 150s so hard that, when she’s done, it’s all she can do in the noontime sun to find some shade.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you rise to the top.

And yet – the questions have to be asked:

Is track all the better because it’s a kind of extended family where one of its biggest names can hang on a sunny morning practice with a 54-year-old and a 77-year-old?

Or isn’t that, in its way, kind of ludicrous?

Does LeBron James practice with a 54-year-old doctor of holistic health?

Do Peyton Manning or Tom Brady run 7-on-7 drills with a 77-year-old clinical psychologist at wide receiver?

It’s not that James, Manning and Brady don’t understand their responsibilities as stars. But this is – practice. This is not a fan meet-and-greet.

What if things were different for track and field? What if the decathlon champ was The Man, the way it was when Bruce Jenner and, before him, the likes of Bill Toomey, Rafer Johnson and others were venerated the way Manning, Brady and James are now?

It’s not just Ashton. Brianne is herself a major, major talent.

Of course, track and field does not hold the same place in the imagination that it once did. Dan O’Brien, the 1996 Olympic decathlon winner, is not The Man the way Jenner was. Bryan Clay, the 2008 Olympic decathlon winner – not The Man the way Jenner was.

And that’s no knock on either O’Brien or Clay.

Times simply have changed. Jenner won in Montreal in 1976. That is a long time ago.

Yet in Ashton and Brianne, track has a marquee couple.  Here are breakout stars in the making: doping-free, handsome, articulate, passionate about advancing track and field the same way Michael Phelps has always been for swimming. Phelps is on bus stop advertisements in Shanghai. Why aren’t these two, for instance, featured on the bright lights looking out and over Times Square?

For sure that would be better for the sport.

Would it be better for Ashton and Brianne – and Harry?

It’s all very complex.

Right now, track and field is, for all intents and purposes, Usain Bolt.

Isn’t there room for Ashton and Brianne, too?

The scene at Westmont this weekday morning is all the more striking because it comes amid the news Phelps will be racing again. The media attention enveloping Phelps is, predictably, striking.

Yes, Phelps is the best in the world at what he does.

Then again – so are these two.

Yet here are Ashton and Brianne and Harry – and, for that matter, a Canadian delegation that includes Damian Warner, the 2013 world bronze medalist in the decathlon – going about their business at Westmont, along with the others at the host Santa Barbara Track Club, with no interference, no autograph requests, no attention.

Phelps has always sought to live a normal life. But let’s be real: could Phelps walk around Westmont – or, for that matter, any college campus in the United States – with the same quietude?

After practice, there is a quick session in the Westmont pool. No one swims like Phelps. Then it’s over to the Westmont cafeteria, where lunch is five bucks and the beet salad is, genuinely, awesome.

Brianne says they consistently make a point of reminding themselves that these are the best days of their lives – to live, truly live, in the present and know that they are experiencing special moments.

“To somebody who is in it more for fame or money,” Brianne says, “they would have a lot different outlook on this.”

“The goal is to improve yourself,” Ashton says.

“The goal is excellence,” Harry echoes.

So sweet.

Is winning gold ever 'failure'?

SOPOT, Poland — Over two days, the drama and excitement built, Ashton Eaton chasing his own world record through seven events of the heptathlon. It came down to, ultimately, the final event, the 1000-meter run. To set a new mark, the math tables said he needed to run a time that was, actually, one second slower than his personal best.

He started off great. The announcer said he seemed on his way. The crowd roared. His wife, Brianne Theisen Eaton, who herself had won silver in the pentathlon the night before, was in the stands, cheering. On the bell lap, he seemed to be digging deep.

He crossed the line. Everyone turned to the clock.

No.

He was one second slow.

“I wish I could have gotten the record,” he told the crowd moments later, adding, “I’m not a robot. But I try.”

This all makes for a fascinating case study in success and “failure,” all neatly encapsulated in the person of Ashton Eaton, who — let us all acknowledge — is the gold standard, the most consistent thing going right now in American track and field.

If USA Track & Field were smart — this is a huge if — it would wake up, smell the Courier Coffee (Portland reference, get with it, people) and make Eaton the focus of, like, everything between now and the 2016 world indoors (oh, in Portland) and then the Summer Games later that year in Rio.

The guy is the real deal. He is solid. In every way.

In “failure,” Ashton Eaton should have inspired kids everywhere to ask their high school coach about the heptathlon or the decathlon or, at the least, to want to be a lot like him. For emphasis: everyone should "fail" like this. This was what it is like to test yourself and find that that even when you are best in the world, like Ashton Eaton, you can still discover things about yourself to become better still for the next test.

Because life always holds a next test.

Eaton is the London 2012 Olympic and Moscow 2013 world decathlon champion; he is also the Daegu 2011 silver medalist. He holds the decathlon world record.

He is now indoor world champion at both Sopot 2014 and Istanbul 2012.

The gold Saturday means he has now won the Olympic, world and two indoor titles within just two years.

He and Brianne — she competes for Canada — train in Eugene with coach Harry Marra. They comport themselves in seemingly every way with modesty, humility and decency.

Eaton’s prior three heptathlons had produced world records. The IAAF was offering $50,000 for any new world record here. Before the competition got underway, however, he insisted Thursday he truly was not thinking about a new mark.

“It’s all about pushing the limits and seeing where it takes you. The IAAF invites us,” meaning the combined-event athletes, “because they saw our performances and wanted us to compete here. I’m not going for a world record, I’m competing to win and whatever else happens is a cherry on top.”

Friday’s events — the first four of the seven — had left Eaton just one point behind world-record pace.

In Saturday’s morning session, precisely at the stroke of 10, Eaton ran the 60-meter hurdles in 7.64 seconds. That was just four hundredths off his lifetime best. It was also four-hundredths better than he did in Istanbul. That put him nine points ahead of world-record pace.

An hour later, in the pole vault, he cleared 4.90 meters, or 16 feet, 3/4 inch, and made it look easy. The same at 5.0, 16-4 3/4. He skipped 5.1, electing to go straight to 5.2, 17-3/4. There he missed his first two attempts. He cleared the third, seemingly more on will than anything else, veering to the right as he cleared.

As he hit the pad, both arms went up, touchdown-style. He was, still, nine points ahead of world-record pace.

“It was ugly,” he said later. “That’s the beauty of the decathlon. It doesn’t have to be pretty. At that point, it was — screw technique, just get the body over the bar.”

He missed his first two attempts at 5.3, 17-4 1/2. The music started pumping for the third try and he pumped his right fist in time. But he came up well short, indeed under the bar.

That meant he needed 2:33.54 in the 1000 to break the world record. His personal best: 2:32.67, at the 2010 NCAAs.

That, per the schedule, had to wait until Saturday night.

Other American athletes came through with some shining results as the evening wound around: in a major upset, Nia Ali, coached by Moscow 2013 110-meter men’s hurdles silver medalist Ryan Wilson, won the women’s 60 hurdles in a personal-best 7.80, defeating Australian Sally Pearson, the London 2012 100 hurdles champ, who finished second in 7.85; Francena McCorory won the women’s 400, in 51.12 seconds; Marvin Bracy took silver in the men’s 60 in 6.51; Kyle Clemons, who got on a car accident en route to the airport on his way to Poland, took bronze in the men’s 400, in 45.74.

Brianne, escorted by Marra, made it out to the seats about five minutes before Ashton’s race.

He went immediately to the lead and held it at every split but one, at 400 meters. At 800, the timing clock said 2:06.20, and he kicked it into high gear, gritting his teeth, pumping his arms.

He crossed the finish line in 2:34.72.

For sure, it was good enough for gold. Everyone knew that. Andrei Krauchanka of Belarus would end up taking silver, Thomas Van Der Plaetsen of Belgium bronze.

After Eaton saw the time, he slapped his fist in his hand. He shook his head. He took a few steps and then slapped the railing in disgust.

There will naturally be critics who say — that’s sportsmanship?

Attention, critics: Ashton Eaton is competing for two days with the other guys. They enjoy a fraternity and camaraderie. The only guy he was miffed at was himself, for a second, over a second.

We ask our Olympic champions to be real. Here’s real:

“I think,” he said, “I was just mentally weak.”

He also said, “I don’t know. I should be satisfied with the gold medal. But at this point — indoors, if I don’t get a world record, it feels like silver, like a loss.”

And: “I know, it’s kind of awkward. It’s the position I put myself in. I think I expected a lot from myself. I wanted the world record, too,” after the pole vault, when it became apparent it was again attainable. “I’m disappointed.”

This is what he was telling himself in the 1000: “Ashton, you need to be tough.” But: “I just didn’t push myself hard enough. Clearly, I mean, the last lap, I went, and I was like, let’s see what I have, and I had a lot — I was like, you idiot.”

What, then, he was asked, is the lesson from all this?

Good question, he said.

“If I hadn’t gotten silver in Daegu, I don’t think I would have learned from ‘quote’ failure. Not getting a record indoors, that’s a failure for myself. I’m not sure what I have learned yet. But I will reflect and I know I will learn something. Maybe a little bit about myself.”

A good place to start will be with Marra. Ashton and Brianne hugged each other under the stadium as their coach had this to say:

“Bottom line is this: you come to a competition, whoever you are, whatever event, you try to show to the world you’re the best. Ashton Eaton competed well. Bottom line is to win. He put himself in to position to try to go get a world record. You can’t put a damper on that; you can’t put a damper on that. Otherwise, the sport would go down the tubes.

“It’s about head-to-head competition. If you can, you get the world record. Would it have been nice? Of course. But it didn’t happen. OK.

“Solid,” Harry Marra said, “all the way through.”