Ashton Eaton, wife Brianne Theisen-Eaton retire from track

Bend’s own two-time Olympic gold-medal decathlon champion. Ashton Eaton, and his wife, Canadian heptathlete Brianne Theisen-Eaton, jointly announced their retirement from track and field competition on Wednesday.

NBC Sports reported the announcement came less than five months after Eaton repeated as Olympic decathlon champion and Theisen-Eaton earned heptathlon bronze in Rio, becoming the first Canadian to make the podium in the event.

“It’s my time to depart from athletics; to do something new,” Eaton said on the married couple’s website. “Frankly there isn’t much more I want to do in sport. I gave the most physically robust years of my life to the discovery and pursuit of my limits in this domain. Did I reach them? Truthfully I’m not sure anyone really does. It seems like we tend to run out of time or will before we run out of potential. That makes humanity limitless then, as far as I’m concerned. And I think that’s inspiring.”

Eaton, 28, is one of three men to win multiple Olympic decathlons, joining Bob Mathias and Daley Thompson. Eaton twice broke the decathlon record, at the 2012 Olympic Trials and the 2015 World Championships.

Eaton did not lose a decathlon in the final five years of his career.

Eaton, a graduate of Bend’s Mountain View High School, offered up many thanks in his retirement announcement (headlined “Our Valedictory”), including this: “To USA & Oregon; My birthplace Portland, my roots in La Pine and Bend, and the University of Oregon. I am a product of this environment. Thank you for fostering possibility.”

Theisen-Eaton, also 28, earned world championships heptathlon silver medals in 2013 and 2015 before taking bronze in Rio. She said she was mentally exhausted after the Rio Games.

“I have never been so thankful to be finished [with] something in my life,” Theisen-Eaton said of Rio on their website. “I felt like I never wanted to do another heptathlon again.

“I no longer have the passion for track and field or the heptathlon that I used to because I know I can’t advance any further in the sport. I’ve given it all I can, and I refuse to come back and half-ass it because I love and respect this event and sport too much. With that, I’ve decided to retire.”

Eaton said shortly after his Rio competition that he would not compete in the 2020 Olympics and that he may retire in 2017.

The Eatons met as teenagers as students at the University of Oregon and were married in a 2013 ceremony that included a cake that looked like an Xbox, in honor of Eaton’s love of video games.