Brazil's boy wonder comes out of the blue - and into the gold
Thiago Braz da Silva shocks the pole vault world by unseating sport's incumbent king
By Scott Russell, CBC Sports
As he fell from the sky and recorded a new Olympic record in the pole vault, Thiago Braz da Silva offered Brazil a moment to savour.
He was conjured up seemingly from nowhere.
Braz da Silva is only 22, a former world junior champion, whose personal best of 5.93 metres was a full 23 centimetres below that of the mighty Frenchman, Olympic champion, and world record holder Renaud Lavillenie who had just seconds before strutted around the stadium as if he owned it.
Lavillenie has this penchant for getting the crowd to chant for him and then unzipping the front of his track suit to beat his mighty chest after each successful flight.
On this occasion his antics backfired.
Rivals fall by the wayside
The partisans in the Olympic Stadium were having none of it and each time another of their man Braz da Silva's rivals fell by the wayside, including the highly touted and talented Canadian, world champion Shawn Barber, they began to sense something was afoot.
Suddenly by gambling correctly and pushing the bar to 6.03 metres, Braz da Silva literally caught a flier and proceeded to make a leap of faith.
With all other contenders gone and nothing to lose, the Brazilian pretender refused to back down to his sport's incumbent king. As the crowd roared its approving encouragement, he audaciously used his final pole-vault-as-poker-chip to soar over the bar – a full 10 centimetres higher than he had ever gone before.
It worked and the reaction was tremendous.
There were tears from his coaches as well as many in the grandstand, not to mention an embrace from ecstatic American athlete Sam Kendricks who was already eliminated having secured the bronze medal.
It seems the brave and successful underdog who commands the stage in his own backyard can attract quite a following.
King dethroned
Lavillenie meantime had to scramble in a hurry having already missed twice at the height Braz da Silva had just desperately cleared. The champion's hand was forced and he decided to be bold. Why not push the bar a further five centimetres to 6.08 (a height Lavillenie had cleared more than once in his illustrious career) and get rid of the kid for good?
It all went wrong and Lavillenie fell to earth like a stone in the steamy Rio de Janeiro night.
The crowd erupted and Brazil's boy wonder triumphantly assumed his place in the national spotlight.
In the aftermath Lavillenie sulked and spoke of the unfairness of booing as well as the crass custom of cheering when an opponent stumbles.
He may have had a point, but then again, only partially so.
What really happened here was that the champion – which Lavillenie undoubtedly is – failed to see this whole thing coming, he was in effect blindsided by the opponent he hadn't bargained for.
The lesson being that at the Olympics there will be tales of the unexpected which are told when conditions are right.
And more often than not, a hero from home has the possibility to magically materialize from out of the blue.