Ash Moloney off to flying start in decathlon

Australia’s Ash Moloney had a brilliant start to his first Olympic decathlon, sitting in third place after the opening three rounds in the first morning of the punishing event.

Moloney, a dark horse for a medal on the track, had his best possible start, running a personal best 10.34s in the 100m sprint. He ran second behind Canadian Damien Warner, who on the fast, hot Tokyo track ran a world decathlon 100m record time of 10.12s.

Ashley Moloney, centre, performed strongly in his 100m heat as part of the decathlon.Credit:Getty Images

Moloney scored an important 1013 points in the first event with the second-best sprint time of the morning behind Warner.

Cedric Dubler, who injured his hamstring only weeks ago, got to the line for the decathlon and was delivered a serious examination of that dodgy hammy in the 100m. He ran well, finishing third in 10.89s

Moloney’s sprint speed helped him to a second strong performance in the long jump in the next round. He banked 970 points with his 7.64m best jump which had him hold his ground in second place behind Warner after the first two events.

Dramatically, Thomas van der Plaetsen, the Belgian ranked 12th in the world, face-planted into the pit in his first long jump attempt and did not move for some time.

The former European champion injured his leg as he hit the board to take off looking like he had been shot. He landed flat-faced into the sand. Reports later suggested a hyperextended knee.

The third round would be the big challenge for Moloney, who had shown he had good pace, but the shot put would test his strength.

He threw a best effort 14.49 points to be 10th in his group. His 758 points saw him drop a place in the rankings to third overall on 2741 points behind Canadians Warner (2966) and Pierce Le Page (2773).

The decathlon resumes tonight with the high jump first.

Earlier, Australia’s 110m hurdler Nick Hough clipped each hurdle, knocking down seven of the 10 hurdles, in his semi-final. Hough finished seventh in 13:88secs.

“I was ranked 35 in the world (coming into the Games) so I shouldn’t have made the semi-finals in the first place. I got into the top 24. I was obviously hoping to make the final but I would have had to run a massive PB to do that,” Hough said.

“That’s not too bad. I was happy to be out there in an Olympic semi-final. It was not the race I wanted, I was nursing a bit of a calf niggle in the warm-up from the heat yesterday. I’m glad I could get out on the track.

“I wanted to go quicker than heat yesterday but body thought otherwise. The muscles are getting old I think.”

Michael Gleeson is an award-winning senior sports writer specialising in AFL and athletics.

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