He hates it. This is no exaggeration. Dan O’Brien just hates the 1,500 meters, the 10th and final event of the decathlon.
The world record-holder hates it so much the mere thought of it can bring him to tears. This is no exaggeration either. There have been times in his career when he has sat there after the javelin and literally broken down just thinking of that run still ahead of him.
Before his victorious run Thursday night, he rarely had truly run that metric mile. Three times he chose to let a world record escape rather than push himself through. But he was always so far ahead going into it, he couldn’t lose no matter the paucity of his effort.
But that changed here when Dan O’Brien found himself in a decathlon that would test his heart and his courage in its last event. Germany’s Frank Busemann saw to that, hanging up a string of personal bests and trailing O’Brien by only 209 points entering the dreaded 1,500.
To win, O’Brien needed to finish within 32 seconds of Busemann. He responded with the surge of his life to sprint off the final turn. This brought him home in 4 minutes 45.89 seconds, 26.12 seconds faster than his 1,500 at the U.S. trials and only 14.48 seconds behind Busemann. With that, he had 8,824 points–and the gold medal.
“I knew I’d have to run the 1,500,” O’Brien said. “But tonight it was really very exhilarating. The last 150 meters, you’re tired, you’re numb, you hurt, but you’re supposed to.”
Busemann finished with 8,706, good enough for the silver, and the Czech Republic’s Tomas Dvorak earned the bronze with 8,664, just 20 more than fourth-place finisher Steve Fritz of the U.S.
With his victory, O’Brien exorcised memories of his embarrassing failure to make the U.S. team four years ago and answered the many who wondered if he could respond when fully challenged.
With it he also catapulted himself onto an exclusive plateau, joining legendary figures such as Jim Thorpe and Bob Mathias, Rafer Johnson and Bill Toomey, Bruce Jenner and Daley Thompson. They too once earned the title of World’s Greatest Athlete at an Olympics.
His tale is the stuff of a mini-series that begins when he was adopted by Jim and Virginia O’Brien of Klamath Falls, Ore. He is half-white, half-black, and with the O’Briens he joined Virginia’s two children from a previous marriage and five others the O’Briens adopted. Two of them are Korean-Americans, one is a Hispanic, one is a Paiute Indian and one is an African-European.
He was restless as a kid, just as he is now as an adult, and both this and his adolescent immaturity showed when he enrolled at the University of Idaho. He drank too much, partied too hard, stayed out too late, studied too little, paid too few of his bills, and when his debt to the school reached $5,000, he was expelled.
Mike Keller, the coach who had enticed him to Idaho, pushed him to enroll at a junior college in Washington, and when O’Brien later begged him for a second chance, Keller paid off the $5,000 he owed the school. By 1989, both understood he could develop into a world-class decathlete, and together they set off to shape him into one.
Then came the widely known portion of this tale. His 1991 world championship. His co-starring role with Dave Johnson in a $25 million ad campaign for a shoe company. His failure to clear a pole vault height at the trials that cost him a trip to Barcelona. His world record, set just a month after those Games.
That record indicated he was over his trials demise, but inside he still was ripped up and roiling.
“For the first time in my life, I didn’t know what I was going to do,” he said later.
Here his tale took a dark and dangerous turn. Dan O’Brien was in a struggle with the bottle, and at times it appeared the bottle was going to win.
He has said he wasn’t addicted to alcohol. He just loved the social life. Whatever, he straightened out and began seriously to prepare himself for Atlanta. He moved into a quiet house, hired a sports psychologist and rejected the lure of drinking.
He drove himself all the way to the trials, where he entered the 1,500 at a world-record pace. He chose, again, to lope through that one, finishing in 5:12:01, but on Thursday he didn’t have that choice. Busemann had run a decathlon world best in the 110 hurdles, had posted personal bests in the pole vault and the javelin and had in him talent enough to catch O’Brien if O’Brien didn’t finish this event he hates so much close to 5:00.
Already he had responded once to the German’s challenge, throwing the javelin a personal best 219 feet 6 inches. In the 1,500, he did it again.
“I knew,” O’Brien said when he had the first U.S. gold in this event since Jenner’s in 1976, “that I had it won with two laps left. So even though the pain was there, I couldn’t help but smile.
“I had been thinking about that moment for four years. It has been very stressful. Even here, what kept ringing in my ears was the Olympic Games and the gold medal. I couldn’t settle for anything else.
“So I can’t describe what it felt like then. It was just an incredible feeling.”
