Former Texas Longhorn NCAA champion Trey Hardee was in contention for a medal through the first six events of the 10-event decathlon, but his Beijing experience went awry in the seventh, the pole vault. He failed to clear his opening height of 15-5 in the pole vault, giving him zero points. Scoring a zero in any of the 10 events makes medaling pretty much impossible – he instantly dropped from 4th place to 23rd – so he dropped out of the competition.
Hardee appeared to have an injured hand that hampered him in the throwing events, and presumably also made vaulting difficult, but he made no mention of it in his post-competition interview with NBC.
This article appears in August 22 • 2008.