(ATR) Brazilian Thiago Braz da Silva defied odds and gravity becoming an Olympic pole vault champion, pulling off one of the biggest upsets in recent track and field history.
In what quickly escalated into a poker match of cleared heights, narrow misses and strategic passes, da Silva dethroned the reigning Olympic champion and world record holder Renaud Lavillenie of France.
The 22-year-old Brazilian soared over 6.03 meters near the midnight hour, setting a new Olympic record and personal best on his second attempt. Lavillenie then passed and moved the bar up to 6.08 meters, but when he missed, the gold medal belonged to da Silva. The pro-Brazilian crowd erupted into rapturous applause.
"I said to myself, I cannot believe I made 6.03 and thought ‘what happened here,’ da Silva explained. "After this, I thought a gold medal with 6.03 and Olympic record, it’s so good."
"The people supported me and pushed me forward and this was really important to me in getting some medal," da Silva said of the fans. Most of the sparse crowd attending the evening session at the Olympic Stadium was concentrated around the pole vault competition, especially toward the end of the night after all track events had been completed.
Lavillenie added silver to his gold from London 2012 and American Sam Kendricks, 23, won the bronze medal with a leap of 5.85 meters.
"I was so happy to watch my friend Thiago set his personal best in his home country in front of his home crowd and I thrived off that as well," Kendricks said.
Lavillenie called out the raucous pro-Brazilian crowd for booing him, and others, whenever they cleared heights, thus bumping da Silva down in the standings.
"It was the first time that I saw this kind of crowd – I’ve competed in many, many events, in many countries and it was the first time that everybody was against me," Lavillenie said.
"There was no respect, no fair play and if we have no respect in the Olympics where can we get respect," said the French pole vaulter. "I’m very sad and very disappointed about the public that was in the stadium."
"I understand the people from Brazil – they want the guy from Brazil to win and they cannot control their emotions," da Silva countered, defending the Brazilian fans, many of whom packed seats surrounding the pole vault set-up.
Rio 2016 communications director Mario Andrada addressed the crowd behavior at his daily briefing on Tuesday.
"Booing is not the right thing to do.We intend to intensify our dialogue with Brazilian fans through social media to make sure we behave in the proper manner without losing passion for the sport."
The lengthy four-hour competition – which was halted right out of the box because of rain and delayed roughly an hour – marked the first time that two vaulters set Olympic records and the winning mark exceeded six meters at the Games.
Brazilians can only hope da Silva's gold medal will jump start what has so far been an historically poor performance by the home country at these Rio Games.
Da Silva's gold medal moved Brazil from 28th to 16th in the medals table. The host country was aiming for a top 10 finish before Rio 2016 began. Historically, the host country performs at record levels in terms of medals. That has been the case for every Summer Olympics since 1988. But Brazil faces an uphill battle to keep that record intact.
As only the second Brazilian to win a gold medal at the Rio 2016 Games, da Silva appears to be on course to becoming a national hero.
"I like Thiago Braz," he told reporters on what name he likes to be referred to as. "It sounds like a Brazilian football players’s name."
Written by Brian Pinelliat the Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro
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