Brianne Theisen-Eaton (born 18 December 1988) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

retired

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

athlete who competed in the heptathlon and

women's pentathlon The pentathlon or women's pentathlon is a combined track and field event in which each woman competes in five separate events over one day (formerly two days). The distance or time for each event is converted to points via scoring tables, with t ...

. She won the bronze medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics. Theisen-Eaton holds the Canadian record for the heptathlon with 6,808 points, as well as the indoor pentathlon with a score of 4768 points. Theisen-Eaton is a heptathlon silver medallist from the 2013 World Championships and 2015 World Championships, as well as a pentathlon silver medalist from the 2014 World Indoor Championships. She is the first and only Canadian woman to podium in the multi-events at the World Championships. Theisen-Eaton won

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...

gold in the heptathlon at

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and was the 2016 World Indoor Champion in the pentathlon. She also won a bronze medal as part of the women's 4 x 400 m relay at the

2015 Pan American Games Fifteen or 15 may refer to: *15 (number), the natural number following 14 and preceding 16 *one of the years 15 BC, AD 15, 1915, 2015 Music * Fifteen (band), a punk rock band Albums * ''15'' (Buckcherry album), 2005 * ''15'' (Ani Lorak al ...

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. A national junior champion in 2006, she took the heptathlon gold medal at the Pan American Junior Championships the following year. She enrolled at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

and broke a number of school records in her first three years, winning back-to-back

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

heptathlon titles in 2009 and 2010. She also won twice at the NCAA Indoor Championship, including a collegiate pentathlon record in 2011. She and her husband,

Ashton Eaton Ashton James Eaton (born January 21, 1988) is a retired American decathlete and two-time Olympic champion, who holds the world record in the indoor heptathlon event. Eaton was the second decathlete (after Roman Šebrle) to break the 9,000-point ...

, announced their retirement from track and field on January 3, 2017.

Career

Early life

Theisen-Eaton was raised in Humboldt, Saskatchewan and attended Humboldt Collegiate Institute. While in

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

, she took part in

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

, and soccer.Brianne Theisen

Oregon Ducks The Oregon Ducks are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Oregon, located in Eugene. The Ducks compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the Pac-12 Conference. ...

. Retrieved on 2011-03-13. She found her niche in the track and field combined events and represented Canada at the

2005 World Youth Championships in Athletics The 2005 World Youth Championships in Athletics were held in Marrakesh, Morocco on July 13–July 17. The host stadium was Stade Sidi Youssef Ben Ali. The boy's 400 metres hurdles event was initially won by Sudan's Abdulagadir Idriss in a time ...

, finishing seventeenth in the girl's heptathlon. She was the national junior champion in the heptathlon in 2006 and took part in the

2006 World Junior Championships in Athletics The 2006 World Junior Championships in Athletics is the 2006 version of the World Junior Championships in Athletics. It was held from 15 August to 20 August at the Chaoyang Sports Centre in Beijing, the capital of the People's Republic of China. ...

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.Theisen, Brianne
IAAF. Retrieved on 2011-03-13. In her senior year in high school, she won the gold medal at the 2007 Pan American Junior Championships.

College

Theisen-Eaton received a

sports scholarship An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United Sta ...

at the

, where she started a major in business administration in late 2007. In her first year, she was the runner-up at the Pac-10 championships and came fourth in the heptathlon at the

NCAA Women's Outdoor Track and Field Championship The NCAA Women's Outdoor Track and Field Championship refers to one of three annual collegiate outdoor track and field competitions for women organised by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for athletes from institutions that make ...

. Theisen began her second year with a third-place finish in the pentathlon at the

NCAA Women's Indoor Track and Field Championship The NCAA Women's Indoor Track and Field Championship refers to one of three annual collegiate indoor track and field competitions for women organised by the National Collegiate Athletic Association for athletes from institutions that make up its th ...

. The outdoor season saw her establish herself among the world elite in the heptathlon. She won the Pac-10 title, then set a personal record of 6086 points to win her first NCAA outdoor title, before finally going on to take the national heptathlon title that summer. This earned her a spot on the national team to make her senior international debut at the

2009 World Championships in Athletics The 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics () were held in Berlin, Germany from 15–23 August 2009. The majority of events took place in the Olympiastadion, while the marathon and racewalking events started and finished at the Brandenburg ...

. As Canada's only representative in the event, she came in fifteenth place. In addition to her athletic breakthrough, she also received a mention for All-Academic honours that year. Theisen continued her strong college form into the following year, winning her first pentathlon title at the 2010 NCAA Indoors with 4396 points and repeating as the Pac-10 Outdoor heptathlon champion. She also took a second consecutive victory at the NCAA Outdoors, improving her personal record to 6094 points. This total ranked her within the top twenty athletes in her discipline worldwide that year. At the NCAA Outdoors, she had her second win of the competition when she helped the Oregon women's team to the 4×400-meter relay title. That year, she also led Oregon to a decathlon/heptathlon double at the

Texas Relays The Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays are an annual track and field competition held at Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas. The University of Texas serves as host for the event, held on either the first or second weekend of April. Events are he ...

, as she claimed the win alongside her schoolmate

to whom she was engaged. They married in July 2013. In 2011, she won at the NCAA Indoor Championships for a second time and broke Jacquelyn Johnson's collegiate record mark with a total of 4540 points from five events. She suffered an injury in the outdoor season that year and missed ten months as a result. She returned at the Texas A&M Challenge in January 2012 and recorded a score of 4555 points to win the meet. This was a new collegiate and Canadian national record for the event, beating Jill Ross-Giffen's previous score, and Theisen improved her personal bests in the shot put (12.87 m) and high jump (1.88 m) events. A third NCAA Indoor title came two months later with a winning score of 4536 points, which included a 60 m hurdles best of 8.25 seconds. She also repeated as the heptathlon champion and her personal best score of 6440 points included four new bests in individual events (hurdles, shot put, long jump and javelin).

Professional

Theisen placed second at the

Canadian Track and Field Championships The Canadian Track and Field Championships is an annual outdoor track and field competition organized by Athletics Canada, which serves as the Canadian national championships for the sport. The most recent edition of the event took place in Montr ...

and went on to finish eleventh in the heptathlon at the

2012 London Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

. A score of 6376 points at the 2013 Hypo Meeting was enough to win the high-profile event ahead of Tatyana Chernova, and she formed a rare Canadian combined events double alongside the men's winner

Damian Warner Damian David George Warner (born November 4, 1989) is a Canadian track and field athlete specializing in decathlon. He is the 2020 Olympic champion and a three-time World medallist (silver in 2015, bronze in 2013 and 2019). Warner also won the ...

. The

2013 World Championships in Athletics The 14th IAAF World Championships in Athletics (Moscow 2013) () was an international athletics competition held in Moscow, Russia, from 10–18 August 2013. Initially, Russia won the most gold medals to top the table for the first time since 200 ...

was a wide open event in the heptathlon in that two of the world's best competitors in Chernova and

Jessica Ennis-Hill Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill (born 28 January 1986) is a British retired track and field athlete from England, specialising in multi-eventing disciplines and 100 metres hurdles. As a competitor in heptathlon, she is the 2012 Olympic champion, ...

both missed the competition as a result of injuries. Despite putting up a personal best 6,530 points, she had to settle for silver, just 56 points behind eventual World Champion Hanna Melnichenko. After Gotzis, this was the second major competition in a row where the Canadian men and women multi-eventers had a double medal meeting after Warner won bronze at the world championships; however, a double gold for the power couple of Eaton and Eaton-Theisen was narrowly missed. She commented on her achievement saying "I'm at peace getting silver knowing I gave it 110 per cent. Ashton and I talked about both being on the podium here. I watched Ashton the last couple of years winning his medals and could only imagine what that actually felt like." In her last outing that year, she was third at the Decastar meet in France. At the 2014 World Indoor Championships in Poland, Theisen captured silver in pentathlon with a personal best score of 4768, breaking her own national record. She next competed at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in

where she went on to win the gold medal in the women's heptathlon event ahead of compatriot Jessica Zelinka. After she said, "So this gold medal makes me really happy. I always said I don't think I would get choked up but I had to fight back a few tears n the podium It's just representing your country and knowing everybody back home is happy and watching and supporting you. It feels really good."

2015 World Championship silver

Theisen-Eaton did not compete in the Heptathlon at the

in her home country of Canada. Instead she chose to compete in the long jump event in

. There she finished fourth, just one centimetre off the podium. She also participated in the women's 4 × 400 m relay, this time helping the team to a bronze medal. She went into the

2015 World Championships in Athletics The 2015 IAAF World Championships ( zh, 第十五届世界田径锦标赛), the fifteenth edition of the IAAF World Championships, were held from 22 to 30 August at the National Stadium in Beijing, China. Forty-three nations won medals, 144 of ...

as the favourite to win, having achieved higher scores than rival

since Hill's return from pregnancy. Despite this, Hill won by 115pts with a season's best 6,669. Theisen-Eaton was disappointed with her silver medal saying "I'm disappointed. I went in as the favourite and I didn't compete how I had to to win gold. And that was my own fault. So I am disappointed with it, but there are some lessons that I have learned from it that hopefully I can take into next year...I mean, I scored 250 points less than I already have this year, and had I just done the same thing I had done already previously this year, it would have got me a gold." Brianne_Theisen-Eaton_Portland_2016

2016 World Indoor Champion and Olympics

The following season Theisen-Eaton followed up her outdoor disappointment with a world title in the indoor pentathlon. She won the title as world champion in the pentathlon, though rival Ennis-Hill was absent. In the process of her win she set a world leading score and North American record for the pentathlon. During the beginning of the outdoor season, at the 2016 Hypomeeting, Theisen-Eaton continued her momentum, winning another event that was again missing Ennis-Hill. Theisen-Eaton finished with a world-leading 6765 points. Theisen-Eaton competed for Canada in the heptathlon at the 2016 Summer Olympics. After the first day she trailed in sixth place, despite going into the Olympics with the world leading score. During the second day she performed well in the long-jump and javelin events, getting near personal bests which put her into the third-place position going into the final event, the 800 metres. She would finish third in her heat and win the bronze medal scoring 6653 behind winner

Nafissatou Thiam Nafissatou "Nafi" Thiam (; born 19 August 1994) is a Belgian Sport of athletics, athlete specializing in multi-event competition. Thiam is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, winning the heptathlon event at the 2016 Summer Olympics, 2016 and 2020 ...

, with

finishing second. She said of day two that "I'm happy with today, really happy with today. I never would have guessed after that kind of first day I would end up with a medal and actually yscore wasn't half bad either."

International competitions

National titles

**Heptathlon: Three time champion * NCAA Indoor Championships **Pentathlon: 2010, 2011, 2012 * NCAA Outdoor Championships **Heptathlon: 2009, 2010, 2012) **4 × 400 m relay: 2010

Personal bests

Personal life

She married American decathlete

in July 2013. The pair met while competing together at the

. The two of them starred in a

Visa Inc. Visa Inc. (; stylized as ''VISA'') is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California. It facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world, most commonly through Visa-branded cred ...

advertisement that aired during the 2016 Summer Olympics, which poked fun at their romance despite representing different countrie

https://www.visaitalia.com/olympics/team-visa-decathlete-to-beat.html]

References

External links

*
Brianne Theisen-Eaton
at Athletics Canada
Brianne Theisen-Eaton
at All-Athletics.com * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Theisen, Brianne 1988 births Living people Athletes from Saskatoon Canadian heptathletes Canadian pentathletes Olympic heptathletes Olympic track and field athletes of Canada Olympic bronze medalists in athletics (track and field) Olympic bronze medalists for Canada Athletes (track and field) at the 2012 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2016 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2016 Summer Olympics Commonwealth Games gold medallists for Canada Commonwealth Games medallists in athletics Athletes (track and field) at the 2014 Commonwealth Games Pan American Games track and field athletes for Canada Pan American Games bronze medalists for Canada Pan American Games medalists in athletics (track and field) Athletes (track and field) at the 2015 Pan American Games World Athletics Championships athletes for Canada World Athletics Championships medalists World Athletics Indoor Championships winners Canadian Track and Field Championships winners Oregon Ducks women's track and field athletes Medalists at the 2015 Pan American Games