Champion Macey wants Olympic gold

By Matt Majendie
BBC Sport in Melbourne

MACEY'S INJURY HISTORY 1996: stress fracture of shins 1997: hamstring 2000: right elbow surgery 2002: hamstring surgery, missed Commonwealths 2003: Achilles, missed Worlds 2004: hamstring, missed Gotzis meeting

Dean Macey believes he has every chance of winning Olympic gold after clinching the Commonwealth Games decathlon title.

The 28-year-old Essex athlete, whose career has been blighted by injury, defied "a fair few niggles" to win his first major championship on Monday.

"This has given me complete and utter belief to go up another step and go for gold in Beijing," he told BBC Sport.

"This wasn't the world's toughest field but I won it. I feel a million dollars and I'm not going to stop now!"

How Dean beat injury to win gold

Macey admitted he had "thrown away" the chance for gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, where he eventually finished fourth - a result he repeated four years later in Athens.

But he added: "I don't want to go to another Olympics and come away thinking what could have been.

"This win has given me the kick I needed. It's only up from here."

Macey had not trained for the last three weeks because of injury, most notably a hamstring complaint that had flared up in training.

He struggled throughout the two days of competition in Melbourne, managing a throw of just 56.93m in the penultimate event, the javelin, to leave him needing to beat closest rival Jason Dudley by six seconds.

In the end he comfortably held off the Australian for the gold.

"I realised this was the best chance of my career to win a major championship and thankfully I didn't mess it up," he said.

"But I did my level best to throw it away. I'd be winning it, then I'd mess it up but finally it came good. My body kills but I couldn't care less."