The day after his dramatic departure, when he had to be pushed off the track in a wheelchair, Niklas Kaul was quite composed again.

"It won't be nice now," said the decathlon world champion with an injured foot about his plan to visit the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo as a grandstand guest.

But quarreling doesn't help, he wanted to see “the boys” throwing a javelin and running over 1500 meters.

Achim Dreis

Sports editor.

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The boys are his decathlon colleagues with whom the 23-year-old actually wanted to compete for medals. But nothing came of it because Kaul had suffered a bruise in the ankle of his right foot during the high jump the day before.

So he had to watch without a fight as Damian Warner was proclaimed the new king of athletes. The 31-year-old Canadian not only deservedly won the gold medal, which he secured with a sovereign start-finish victory without any wobbles, he even exceeded the magical 9000 mark with his result of 9018 points, which he just barely achieved in Götzis missed (8995). The classic sprinter from North America took the lead early on Wednesday with a brilliant sprint in 10.12 seconds, which he expanded with two records within a decathlon: 8.24 meters in the long jump and 13.46 seconds in the hurdles, no decathlete has yet had a decathlon Made it in the Olympic framework. The French Kevin Mayer, world record holder with 9126 points and just like Kaul a man of the second day,won the silver medal with 8726 points after a strong comeback, which culminated in a javelin throw at 73.09 meters. The Australian Ashley Moloney (8649) surprisingly secured bronze. Kai Kazmirek (8126) took 14th place.

Judging by his start in the all-around competition, Niklas Kaul could have had a say in the medal decision.

It "clicked", he said after a difficult season so far.

He would have dared to set a house record of around 8,700 points.

After personal best performances in long and high jump and good results for him in sprint and shot put, he was a good hundred points above his intermediate mark in Doha, where he had become sensationally world champion thanks to a brilliant second day.

Nobody fell as low as Kaul

It happened when jumping to the high jump. "I put my foot too close," said Kaul, analyzing his mishap, which at first glance was not recognizable as such. The jump was successful, as was the flight: 2.11 meters flawlessly mastered. He had never jumped so high in any competition and his cheers were correspondingly exuberant. No decathlete got higher in the high jump that day. But no one fell as low as he did. Because even when switching from diving shoes to bathing slippers, even the TV viewers knew that something was wrong: blood was pumping through their socks. Kaul's “standing too close” had the effect that too high forces acted on the spring foot. “I have to make sure that I stay further away”, the young man analyzed his mishap in an astonishingly clear manner in the style of a coach.But he immediately had the explanation ready: “High performance situation”. The athlete from the world doesn't always listen to himself in the way it would probably make sense. The result was a painful bruising of the metatarsus.