EUGENE — Ashton Eaton will head to the Rio de Janeiro Games as the clear favorite to win the decathlon and become the first since Great Britain’s Daley Thompson in 1984 to defend his Olympic gold medal in the event.

Eaton battled some nagging injuries to win the decathlon at the U.S. Olympic trials this past weekend, and now he will turn his focus to Rio. The games are Aug. 5-21, and the decathlon is scheduled for Aug. 17-18.

That does not leave a lot of recovery time for Eaton, who suffered a left quadriceps tear in late May and had a tight right hamstring after posting the top time in the 100 meters in Eugene.

“The little things I was having, I feel like I was at about 90 (percent),” said Eaton, the decathlon world-record holder from Bend.

“It’s nothing too significant, but again, I’m not a very good judge. My training before (the trials) was altered, obviously. I thought, I had this little mini subgoal of trying to score 9,000 every time I did the decathlon. It’d be cool to just never go back to 8,000. But, I think it’s the nature of just getting older and these type of events. My training now going into Rio will be quite a bit more normal.”

Eaton, 28, won the Olympic trials with 8,750 points, the world’s best score this year but well off his world record of 9,045 set at the 2015 world championships.

He still won or tied five events, holding off second-place Jeremy Taiwo (8,425) and third-place Zach Ziemek (8,413), who also both qualified for the Rio Games.

Eaton’s outspoken and humorous coach Harry Marra said he likes Eaton’s chances to win Olympic gold again, but the coach admitted that he was worried heading into the trials. In fact, Marra said he was “scared poopless.”

“Going in with an injury or something happens, you know the drama of the Olympic trials,” Marra said. “Whether you’re Ashton Eaton or an average athlete, there’s way more chances to screw up a decathlon than there is to be successful in one.”

After winning the 100 meters Saturday, the first event of the decathlon, Marra said Eaton felt a tightness in his right hamstring. Eaton was checked out by a chiropractor, who said the issue was Eaton’s right ankle.

“If your ankle’s a little tweaked out, you put your foot down a whole bunch of times, something pays the price,” Marra explained. “The (hamstring) muscle kept getting tighter. The chiropractor worked it out and as the meet went on, it got better and better.”

Said Eaton: “My hamstring was tender to the touch, but that was about it. When I was warming up for the hurdles (Sunday’s first event) that was the only thing I was thinking about, and I thought it felt pretty decent.”

In Rio, Eaton and his wife — Canadian heptathlete Brianne Theisen-Eaton, also coached by Marra — will try to become the first husband-wife tandem to win Olympic gold medals in the multi-events.

Eaton will also attempt to become the first American to win consecutive Olympic gold medals in the decathlon since Bob Mathias (1948, 1952).

“It’s awesome company to be in, with Bob Mathias, Daley Thompson, but there’s some really good competitors,” Eaton said. “The Canadian guy, Damian Warner, my wife’s fellow countryman … he’s awesome, and he’ll put up a fight.”

Marra mentioned German decathlete Arthur Abele, who recently scored a personal best 8,605 points, as competition for Eaton in Rio.

“He can be a talent,” Marra said of Abele. “And I tell ya, Jeremy Taiwo, Zach Ziemek and Ashton Eaton, that’s gonna be a tough U.S. threesome. These kids are gonna fight. When you look at those kids and Ashton, that’s the new somatotype of the new-wave decathlete: taller, thinner, more athletic. That’s a great representation for the United States.”

At this point, it does not seem likely that Eaton will try to break his own decathlon world record in Rio. He set his first world record (9,039 points) at the 2012 Olympic trials in Eugene before going on to win the gold medal at the London Games. Then he broke his world record at last year’s world championships.

But Eaton is not necessarily ruling out a run at another record.

“The Olympic Games are so much different than anything else,” Eaton said. “You don’t even talk about world records in a way. If it’s there at the very end, I’ll try to run and get it, but other than that it’s just event to event, compete.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0318, mmorical@bendbulletin.com