Olympic champion Ashton Eaton retires from decathlon

Just months after defending his gold medal in the decathlon at this past summer’s Rio Games, American decathlete Ashton Eaton announced his retirement on Wednesday with a statement posted to his web site, calling it “my time to depart from athletics.”

The statement, posted to www.weareeaton.com, came alongside a similar announcement by his wife, Brianne Theisen-Eaton, who took bronze in the heptathlon in Rio.

It’s time “to do something new,” wrote Eaton.

One of the most decorated decathletes in Olympic history, Eaton, 28, is one of only three two-time gold medalists in the discipline, joining the USA’s Bob Mathias (1948 and 1952) and Great Britain’s Daley Thompson (1980 and 1984).

Four years after taking gold in the 2012 London Games, Eaton’s performance in Rio (8,893 points) tied the Olympic record. He also owns the overall world record (9,045 points), set at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, and the world record in the heptathlon (6,645 points), set in Turkey in 2012.

“It’s historic,” Eaton’s coach, Harry Marra, said following his gold at this past Summer Games.

“Frankly there isn’t much more I want to do in sport,” Eaton wrote. “I gave the most physically robust years of my life to the discovery and pursuit of my limits in this domain. Did I reach them? Truthfully I'm not sure anyone really does.

“It seems like we tend to run out of time or will before we run out of potential. That makes humanity limitless then, as far as I'm concerned. And I think that's inspiring.”