Pierce LePage, the reigning world decathlon champion from Canada, will miss the Paris Olympics due to a herniated disk in his back and will undergo surgery.
LePage, 28, said he suffered the injury in April. The initial prognosis had him ready to return by the Olympics.
“But I just happen to be one of those people who don’t naturally heal from disk herniations,” he said in a video posted to social media. “I’ve pushed through injuries before, and I’ve competed on injuries. So, to the very end, until the last week or so, I really thought I was going to push through it and be able to do it, but can’t force my back to suddenly start working, no matter how hard I try.
“I went to meets, tried to test it. There was no power. Nothing was really going on, and it got to the point where it was either go to the Olympics, score 7,000 points, if that, or hurt myself and risk future long-lasting damage. My mind wants to be there, but every sign in my body is telling me not to, and that it’s a mistake. So me and my team, we ultimately made the decision not to go.”
Last August, LePage led a Canadian one-two in the decathlon at the world championships with Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Damian Warner.
LePage was fifth in his Olympic debut in Tokyo (competing with a torn patellar tendon). He took silver at the 2022 World Championships behind world record holder Kevin Mayer of France before becoming the first Canadian to win a world title in the event in 2023.
“I want to defend my title next year,” he said.
LePage, a 6-foot-8 Ontarian, formerly was a maintenance worker at the track where he trains and also used to do video game competitions.
German Leo Neugebauer, the NCAA champion from the University of Texas, has the world’s best decathlon score this year of 8,961 points. That score, the best in the world in this Olympic cycle, would have won the 2023 World title by 52 points over LePage.
Neugebauer can become the youngest Olympic decathlon gold medalist since Czech Robert Změlík in 1992.
Warner, now 34, is already the oldest Olympic decathlon medalist of any color from his gold in Tokyo, according to the OlyMADMen.