approach that he just wanted the season to be over.
“Luckily, I was patient, and things finally worked out and things clicked, and when they clicked, they really clicked,” he said.
Leading up to the Rio Olympics, he relocated from Bloomington to Toronto so he could work more closely with Huntoon on a daily basis. Drouin amended his technique, speeding up and taking longer strides toward the bar. But he began feeling back pain in January, so he cut short his indoor season. After jumping 7–6 at Qatar in early May, he learned the diagnosis of the two fractures but did not reveal the condition publicly.
There were days he wondered if he would jump in Rio de Janeiro. Over time, his condition improved. He met with a sports psychologist for the first time. Then, less than a month before the Olympic final, he jumped 7–9¾, beating top rival Barshim. It was Drouin’s highest jump in twenty-seven months, since his Canadian record in Des Moines. He did not raise the bar, so he ended that meet without missing once. That is called a clean sheet, and few keep it as clean as Drouin.
He said pressure in Rio could be viewed in two ways: that because he had an Olympic medal, he had none; or because he was world champion, he had much.
“Dealing with pressure is something I’ve been pretty good at,” he said.
In the Olympic Village, several days before he was to compete, he dreamed he won the gold medal. He said he felt relieved, then reminded himself that he spent his entire life dreaming about going to the Olympic Games.
“Yet here I am wishing it away,” he said. “I had to stop wishing this was over and enjoy the moment.”
He breezed through qualifying, jumping 7–6, the same height he had cleared to win bronze four years before. In the final, he was as precise as a Swiss timing device. He cleared six bars on first attempts: 7–2½, 7–4½, 7–6, 7–7¾, 7–8¾, 7–9¾.
No one else could match that. He missed once at what would have been an Olympic record of 7–10½, then stopped. Winning gold was “probably one of the most powerful emotions I’ve ever felt,” Drouin said.
“He focuses on what he’s going to do, and he goes through the process,” Huntoon said. “That’s why he looks like he does. Some may call it boring, but it was awfully damn exciting tonight.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau congratulated him on Twitter. Radio stations in Canada were “buzzing with his performance,” according to Matheiu Gentes of Athletics Canada. His countrymen gathered around TVs to watch. Drouin subsequently held a news conference at Rio’s Main Press Center.
Only two other men had ever won high jump gold with zero misses en route: Russia’s Andrey Silnov in 2008 and West Germany’s Dietmar Mogenburg in 1984.
Drouin became the second Canadian to win gold in the high jump, after Duncan McNaughton at Los Angeles in 1932, and first in a field event since then. Drouin was Canada’s first gold medalist in individual track or field since 100-meter winner Donovan Bailey in 1996.
Considering his injured back, Drouin’s comeback was reminiscent of several others in Olympic lore:
· In 1964, Al Oerter endured a chronic cervical disc injury, then tore cartilage in his lower ribs while practicing in Tokyo less than a week before discus qualifying. In the final, he set an Olympic record of 200–1 to win the third of his four gold medals.
· In 1968, Tommie Smith pulled an adductor in his groin in the 200-meter semifinals. Two hours later, he won the gold medal and set a world record of 19.83 seconds. That prefaced the demonstration by himself and John Carlos during the medal ceremony.
· In 1984, Joan Benoit underwent arthroscopic surgery on her knee seventeen days before the US marathon trials. She won, then became the first women’s marathon gold medalist.
Drouin always trained as if he were competing in the decathlon. Contrary to the if-it’s-not-broke-don’t-fix-it maxim, he broke down his technique to fix it. His approach to the bar became faster, creating high risk for high jumps.
In April 2017, he jumped 7–5¾—a world record for a decathlon—en route to a score of 7,150 points. He also owns the high jump record, 7–6½, for an indoor heptathlon. An Achilles injury knocked him out of the 2017 World Championships, and he missed the 2018 and 2019 seasons because of a spinal injury causing pain in his neck.
If he could return to form, he would have a chance to be the second three-time high jump medalist ever. The only one is Sweden’s Patrik Sjoberg, who won silvers in 1984 and 1992 and bronze in 1988.
David Neville
Courtesy of Indiana University Athletics.
David Neville
2008
He Kept the Faith and Dived to Glory
DAVID NEVILLE FOUND HIS RHYTHM BEFORE FINDING HIS STRIDE.
He was once better at music than he was at track and field, playing percussion instruments from fourth grade. His mother has a master’s degree in piano performance. He played in the marching band at Indiana University and graduated in 2007 with a music education degree.
But he was a runner. As was his father. As was his grandfather.
Neville himself didn’t necessarily see it that way. He quit track after breaking his foot as a high school sophomore in Merrillville, Indiana. He discovered that he missed it and returned to the team the next year, just a few weeks before the sectional. He qualified for the state meet and finished seventh in the 100 meters.
Then, six years before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he imagined himself being there. He was wearing a Team USA singlet. He was winning medals. The vision was so vivid that he told a reporter about it.
“I stuck with it, stuck with it. And I kept my faith,” said Neville, a devout Christian. “And my faith is the only reason why I can say with assurance that I would be in Beijing.”
He was not only there. He won a bronze medal in the 400 meters, diving to the finish line to complete a 1–2-3 American sweep, and a gold in the 4×400 relay.
Neville’s epiphany came as he began specializing in the 400, a long sprint that has been characterized as the most painful race in the sport. His father, David Neville II, was convinced it would be the best race for his six-foot-three son. The father ran 800 meters in 1:48.54 for Virginia Military Institute in 1982, setting a school record that lasted twenty-six years.
The son was not as convinced, especially after his first 400. He ran that distance in a relay after a few days of training.
“It was horrible,” Neville recalled.
It was fate.
As a Merrillville senior, he set what was then an Indiana high school record of 46.99 seconds in winning the 400-meter state championship. He was fourth in the 200 in what was surely the best Indiana field ever assembled. Gary West Side’s Mark Jelks set a state record of 20.88, and South Bend La Salle’s Leroy Dixon was second. Jelks later became a national indoor champion at 60 meters and first native Hoosier to run 100 meters in less than ten seconds (9.99). Dixon won a gold medal in the 4×100 relay at the 2007
