Damian Warner

Damian David George Warner is a Canadian track and field athlete specializing in the decathlon and heptathlon. Born on November 4, 1989, in London, Ontario, to Kevin Warner and Brenda Philpott, he entered the athletics scene in his youth. By the age of 20, he secured a silver medal at the 2010 Canadian championships with a score of 7449 points. He subsequently won national decathlon titles in 2011 and 2012, earning a selection to the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, where he finished in fifth place with 8442 points.

Warner made his international breakthrough in 2013 by winning the Hypo Meeting and taking the bronze medal at the 2013 World Championships in Athletics with 8512 points, becoming the first Canadian decathlete on a World Championship podium since 1995. He closed 2013 with a win at the Decastar meeting and captured the decathlon gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow despite dealing with an ankle injury. In 2015, Warner won gold at the Pan American Games in Toronto, setting new national and Pan Am records with 8626 points, and took silver at the World Championships in Beijing with a revised national record of 8695 points.

At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Warner claimed the bronze medal, becoming the second Canadian decathlete to medal at the Olympic Games. He recorded a fifth-place finish at the 2017 World Championships after recovering from norovirus, and withdrew from the 2018 Commonwealth Games following a missed height in the pole vault before rebounding to win his fourth Hypo-Meeting title. In 2019, Warner secured his fifth Hypo-Meeting victory, defended his Pan American Games title in Lima, and earned his third World Championship medal by claiming bronze in Doha.

Following training disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic, Warner returned to competition in 2021, winning his sixth Hypo-Meeting with a national record of 8995 points and establishing a decathlon best long jump of 8.28 meters. At the delayed 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Warner won the gold medal with an Olympic record score of 9018 points, becoming the fourth decathlete in history to break the 9000-point threshold. He set Olympic decathlon bests in the 100 meters, long jump, and 110-meter hurdles, was chosen as Canada's closing ceremony flagbearer, and received both the Lionel Conacher Award and the Lou Marsh Trophy.

Warner opened 2022 by winning gold in the heptathlon at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade with a national record score, followed by his seventh Hypo-Meeting victory. Although a hamstring strain forced him to withdraw during the 400-meter segment at the 2022 World Athletics Championships, he returned in 2023 to place second at the Hypo-Meeting and earn his second World Championship silver medal. Warner holds the Olympic Games, Pan Am Games, and Canadian national records for the decathlon.