She also happened to be in attendance.”Effing great,” Macey said, with characteristic ebullience, having added 893 points to the 767 he gained from the 100m. “I’d settle for that in five weeks’ time in Athens.” In the third event yesterday, the shot putt, he settled for a first-time effort of 15.18m, setting a meeting record and adding a further 801 points to his running total.He then cleared 1.86m, 1.92m and 1.95m in the high jump and finished his first day’s work with a time of 50.47sec in the 400m. I just need to know that my hamstring’s going to hold up through the 10 events.”His left leg having held up through the first event, Macey was a little less cautious in the second. His conservative target had been 7m in the long jump, but with his first effort he broke the sand at 7.33m and happily passed on the further two attempts to which he was entitled.His coach, Greg Richards, looked a happy man, too. With his vulnerable hamstring to nurse along the way, the need to stay within as much of a comfort zone as possible was paramount.”I’m looking for the minimum to get me through this weekend,” he confessed “It’s not about the performance. Daley Thompson only made it halfway down the 100m straight before his last-minute attempt to qualify for the Barcelona Olympics decathlon came to grief at Crystal Palace in 1992.It was the last that was seen in competitive action of the greatest British decathlete – the only one who has been greater than Macey, twice a World Championship medallist and a fourth-place finisher at the Sydney Olympics.Macey’s mission this weekend was to achieve the Olympic B standard qualifying score of 7,700 points – 903 points below his personal best. He had spent more time on treatment tables than Hexham’s most celebrated resident, one< Jonny Wilkinson.Hence the palpable relief at having negotiated the initial, metaphorical, hurdle of his 10-event, two-day test of endurance and fitness in the heart of Hadrian's Wall country.

Until yesterday, the problem area had rendered the 26-year-old hamstrung in every respect since he took the decathlon bronze medal at the World Championships in Edmonton in August 2001. Wearing tights to protect his “dodgy” left hamstring, Macey clearly had his foot off the throttle as he cantered to third place in 11.43sec. His time was 0.74 slower than his personal best, but inside his target of 11.5.More importantly, it was also confirmation that his troublesome leg could withstand competitive strain. When Macey settled into his starting blocks for the opening event yesterday, the 100 metres, it was his first competitive test of any description for 35 months. In the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that he twitched in his blocks and false-started.When the race eventually got underway, it was no great surprise, too, that the Canvey Islander set off down the track at a deliberately conservative pace, watched by more competitors and coaches than spectators in the rain-sodden rural Northumberland setting. The green strip at Tynedale Athletics Park just happened to be the most convenient spot for the helicopter to transfer a female patient to the nearby Hexham General Hospital.For once, the most injury-plagued athlete in British athletics was fit enough to stand the rigours of competition. With the fourth discipline in the senior men’s decathlon about to start at the Hexham Combined Events International meeting yesterday, an ambulance parked in the middle of the home straight and an air-ambulance helicopter landed on the in-field.
Fortunately for British athletics, it had nothing to do with Dean Macey.

But personally I have nothing against him.” Jamie Baulch’s hopes of making the British squad ended when he pulled up halfway through his heat with a hamstring injury.. Had we been told, we could have prepared ourselves mentally for it. Instead we were suddenly told this American guy who has run 45.5 is British. “I was only miffed we were told about it at such a late date. I have another gear.” Elias, a member of the Wales 400m relay team at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester two years ago, said he had no objections to Davis’s adoption of British nationality “It’s great for the sport,” he said.