London’s Damian Warner has successfully defended his decathlon gold medal at the Pan Am Games in Lima, Peru.
The 29-year-old Londoner retained his crown in dominant fashion Wednesday, finishing with 8,513 points.
Warner led the competition from start to finish, pulling ahead in the opening event with a 10.32-second 100-metre dash. He topped the field in three of the 10 competitions, also finishing first in long jump and 110-metre hurdles.
The win solidifies Warner as one of the world’s top decathletes.
It also makes him the first male athlete to win back-to-back decathlons at the Pan Am Games. He recorded 8,659 points when he won gold at the 2015 games in Toronto.
The gold follows another successful event in May, where Warner topped the field at the Gotzis Hypo-Meeting.
Warner switched coaches this season, leaving Calgary and longtime multi-events coach Les Gramantik to move back to his hometown of London to train with his high school coach Gar Leyshon.
Warner has a bit of a break before the world championships in Doha, Qatar in October, and then it’s on to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.