Damian Warner, who emerged Olympic decathlon champion has been voted Canada’s best athlete of 2021.
The 32-year-old scooped the Lou Marsh Trophy after his record-setting performance at the Tokyo Games, where he led after all 10 events to become just the fourth person ever to break the vaunted 9,000-point mark. He is the first Canadian to win the Olympic decathlon.
In the historic event, the London, Ont., native was later named Canada’s flag-bearer for the closing ceremony.
Recall that Warner, who won bronze at the 2016 Games in Rio, set an Olympic record and a national record with 9,018 points in Tokyo.
Speaking with newsmen, Warner said “It is an incredible honour. I was at practice and I was warming up and my coach and my manager and [a] couple others came over and shared a video from Damian Cox and he was the one who broke the news to me.
“I think when I look back at it when I’m older, it will mean that much more knowing that we persevered through all those hard circumstances and it’s a testament to the team around me.”
It can be recalled that Warner tied his decathlon world mark in the 100 metres in Tokyo and set Olympic decathlon records in the long jump and 110-metre hurdles.
He cleared a personal best 4.90 metres in the pole vault.
The six other finalists for the award were sprinter Andre De Grasse, swimmer Maggie Mac Neil, soccer players Stephanie Labbé and Alphonso Davies, Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid and Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who was born in Montreal.
It would be recalled that NFL player Laurent Duvernay-Tardif and Davies, a left back for Bayern Munich, were named co-winners of the award last year.
