It's still difficult to put into words for reigning world decathlon champion Pierce LePage. The 28-year-old from Whitby, Ont., had to withdraw from the Paris Olympics due to a herniated disc in his back.
LePage suffered the injury in the spring but pushed to still compete. However, on July 17, he announced on social media he would not be in Paris and needed surgery. "I feel like there's regret obviously, like, yes, I want to be there and things like that," LePage said. "But I feel like there's a lot of people and a lot of fans, friends, support, family, all the people that feeling I kind of let down, let myself down, let my coach down so I felt pretty guilty about that for a long time and still, you know going through the motions. "Obviously it's tough.
I'm world champion. I had a lot of hopes and a lot of goals going into the Games," he added. "It's hard to put into words what I felt, but yeah, it sucked.
But I was happy to push through as far as I could with the injury." LePage tweaked his back in the "end of March, early April," doing an exercise in the gym.