Aiming High

As Gigi Hadid tries out some moves in the season’s best performance looks, Olympic decathlete Ashton Eaton gives her some pointers.

- Robert Sullivan

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that Gigi Hadid, the model who may be the biggest face in fashion right now, can’t possibly have much in common with an Olympic decathlete, except for the obvious, given that Ashton Eaton is poised to be the face of the 2016 games in Brazil.

A few degrees of separation, however, connect them in surprising ways, at least in a pop-cultural sense. Hadid’s fans can recite family trees and point you through marriages and remarriages and casts of reality TV, all of which link Hadid to her best friend, Kendall Jenner, who is—in case you have been living in a cave for a while—the daughter of the last really famous decathlete. Just ask Ashton Eaton about 1976, in Montreal, when Americans were high on bicentennial fever, hyped up by the Cold War (one competitor was a Soviet track-and-field star), and desperate to break a decathlete drought. Like then–Bruce Jenner, Eaton is in that high-altitude category of gold medal–winning, world record– setting athletes who break their own records. And also like Jenner, whose appearance on a Wheaties box in 1977 helped jump-start the current culture of sports celebrities, Eaton is currently endorsed by a galaxy of sponsors—from Nike to Coca-Cola to Gillette—each reminding us that the guy who is today meeting Hadid for the first time is looking for a gold in this month’s Olympics in the event that would make him the single best all-around athlete in the world.

For the record, Hadid is pretty excited to meet this world champion. You can see it in her reaction when she grabs a javelin to test her grip, and Eaton offers some tips. “She has natural ability,” he announces.

“My dad was an Olympic skier,” Hadid points out. She is beaming.

“Oooh,” Eaton says. Double take. “Downhill or mogul?”

“Downhill.”