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You are in: Special Events: 2001: World Athletics |
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Wednesday, 8 August, 2001, 03:12 GMT 04:12 UK
Macey battles to bronze
British hero Macey battles on despite his injury
Britain's Dean Macey claimed a bronze medal with a battling performance in the decathlon at the World Championships in Edmonton.
Fighting off a host of injury problems, he posted a personal best points total of 8603 to finish behind gold medallist Tomas Dvorak and second-placed Erki Nool. Macey capped a courageous performance with a time of four minutes 28.9 seconds in the final event, the 1500m.
And, in so doing, he managed to outrun both of the men who finished above him on the podium. But he could not match Dvorak's performance overall. The Czech set a World Championships record of 8902 points over the 10 events and was closely followed by Estonia's Nool, who posted a national record. Although expressing his disappointment at falling short of the world title, Macey said he was relieved not to have missed out altogether, as he did at the Sydney Olympics. "I've won my own personal gold medal," he said afterwards. "Up until the pole vault, I thought I could still do it."
This badly restricted Macy's movement and prevented him from improving on his first throw of 54.61m. While Nool threw 67.01m and Dvorak 68.53m to establish commanding margins. But problems had begun for Macey during Tuesday's first event, the 110m hurdles. Already sporting heavy strapping on his injured left leg, a series of false starts - two caused by Macey himself - left the Briton in some pain and perilously close to disqualification. He eventually got away, though, and responded with a personal best of 14.34secs - one-hundredth of a second inside his previous best mark.
Next was the discus, in which a poor first effort of 43.49 metres by Macey was followed by an even worse second attempt. But, once again, he dug deep to win his pool with a throw of 46.96m, beating Dvorak into second place. The Czech had a best throw of 45.51m. With his injuries worsening, Macey struggled on in the pole vault but was unable to put further pressure on Dvorak and Nool. Continuing to battle through the pain barrier, Macey reached a height of just 4.70m, while Nool and Dvorak cleared more than five metres to widen the gap.
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