No competitive sports growing up (single mom, no car or phone)
Life and Career:
- 2004: Damian Warner starts grade 9 at Montcalm Secondary School
- 2006: Damian plays football for the first time and then joins the senior basketball team.
- 2006: Damian is forced to join the track and field team, competes in basketball shoes and does not advance.
- 2007: Damian receives his first pair of spikes from one of his competitors and shows his appreciation by beating the donor and advancing to the regional championships. Donated by a kid at Catholic Central High School in London (anonymously) who left a note with them and said he would be a superstar one day.
- 2007: Damian goes to OFSAA Track and Field in Ottawa and wins a bronze medal in the long jump. It will be his only OFSAA medal.
- 2008: Damian wins 3 gold medals at the West Regionals Track and Field Championships and sets a new record in the long jump of 7.48. He picks up an injury, however, and fails to win a medal at OFSAA.
- 2008: At Junior Nationals in Abbotsford B.C. Damian wins medals in the long jump, triple jump, and 4 x 100m relay.
- 2009: Rough year, Damian’s coach convinces him to start training for the decathlon. Damian doesn’t know what the decathlon is.
- 2010: Damian wins Ontario Championship in decathlon, finishes 2nd at Nationals
- 2011: Damian wins his first National Championship and represents Canada at the World Championships in Daegu Korea. He finishes 18th but can see himself running around the track with a flag in the future. Which is his motivation to this day.
- 2012: Damian wins the hotly contested decathlon at the Olympic Trials in Calgary and represents Canada at the Olympics. Damian has a huge personal best and finishes 5th at the Olympics
- 2013: Damian breaks through and wins his first big international meet in Gotzis, Austria in May. Later that summer he sets a PB and wins a bronze medal at the World Championships in Moscow.
- 2014: Damian wins the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
- 2015: Damian wins the Pan Am Games gold in front of a home crowd in Toronto and breaks Michael Smith’s 20 year old Canadian record with a score of 8659.
- 2015: Damian goes to China and wins a silver medal at the World Championships in Beijing, setting a new Canadian record of 8695 in the process.
- 2015: Damian walks the Great Wall of China
- 2016: Damian wins Gotzis for the second time and takes the bronze medal at the Olympics in Rio.
- 2017: Damian moves to Calgary, and wins Gotzis for the 3rd time with a new Canadian record of 8795.
- 2018: Damian wins Gotzis for the 4th time and moves back to London.
- 2019: Damian has had a huge year, winning Gotzis for a record-tying 5th time, winning his second Pan Am Games title in Lima, Peru, and then winning a bronze medal at the World Championships in Doha in October.
- 2019: Damian sees the sunrise on Machu Picchu with his girlfriend Jen.
- 2021: In May Damian wins Gotzis for a record-breaking 6th time and breaks the Canadian record in decathlon with a score of 8995, the 5th highest score ever recorded.
- 2021: In August Damian won the gold medal in Tokyo at the Olympics, shattering the Olympic record by 125 points with a score of 9018. This breaks the Canadian record again and pushes Damian to #4 all-time in the decathlon. He becomes only the 4th man to go over 9000 points and in a single year he sets 3 all-time world best marks in the decathlon, winning the 100m in 10.12 seconds, jumping 8.28m in long jump and running the hurdles in 13.36 seconds.
- 2021: Damian is chosen to carry the Canadian flag in the closing ceremonies of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and does so wearing tight white jeans.
