Gold at last for Macey
England’s Dean Macey today overcame yet more injury problems to win decathlon gold in the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.
Macey went into the final event, the dreaded 1500 metres, 37 points behind Australian Jason Dudley after taking just one throw in the javelin due to an arm injury.
That meant he needed to beat Dudley by around five seconds to take gold, and the 28-year-old from Canvey Island, Essex, easily achieved that to win his first major championship.
Jamaica’s Maurice Smith was second in the 1,500m to snatch silver with Dudley forced to settle for bronze.
Macey had led for much of the two-day competition but tweaked his hamstring in the 110m hurdles this morning and was then overtaken after Dudley threw a new personal best of 69.27m in the javelin.
However, the world championship silver medallist’s personal best over 1500m was almost 40 seconds quicker than Dudley’s and the result was never in serious doubt.
It was England’s second gold medal of the night on the track after Lisa Dobriskey claimed a surprise victory in the women’s 1,500m in a time of four minutes 06.21 seconds.
