Perfect 10
Clay performs without flaw in decathlon
BEIJING - King Gustav V of Sweden started all this in 1912. "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world," he told Jim Thorpe, after Thorpe had won the Olympic decathlon in Stockholm. "Thanks, King," the champ replied, not disagreeing.
Since then, 20 men had earned that title for a quadrennium and half of them had been Americans, among them Glenn Morris, Bob Mathias, Rafer Johnson, Bill Toomey, Bruce Jenner, and Dan O'Brien. Now comes Bryan Clay, the former Hawaiian hell-raiser turned role model father of two, to join the Olympic club with the most demanding initiation.
"I would love for the Wheaties box to happen," the 28-year-old Clay mused yesterday after he'd led wire-to-wire to outpoint Andrei Krauchanka of Belarus, 8,791-8,551, inside the Bird's Nest to become the first US victor since O'Brien in 1996. "That would be the next dream. But it's a different time now than it was when Jenner and those guys competed."
The Big Man in America now is the World's Fastest Human - Carl Lewis, Maurice Greene, Justin Gatlin. Unless you're a track buff, you've probably never heard of Clay before now and he acknowledges that. "In most countries, they know who the decathlon champion is, but in the US it's been pushed to the back burner," Clay said. "Hopefully, this will be a spark to the fire."
On a night when the US team managed no other medals and had no entries in both sprint relay finals for the first time ever, at a Games where the entire men's track squad had produced only two golds, Clay was a skyrocket soaring into the city's sticky air. "Michael Phelps has got nothing on me," he declared. "Just kidding."
Phelps won eight gold medals competing in eight events. Clay won one gold medal competing in 10 events straddling two days - the 100, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400, 110 hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, and 1,500.
"It was brutal, it was just brutal," testified Clay after he'd essen tially jogged through the metric mile to claim the gold. "It probably was the hardest decathlon I've ever done in my life, through all the extremes and weather conditions." There was rain on Day 1, muggy heat on Day 2, and four hours sleep in between. "I got to bed at 1 o'clock last night," Clay said, "then got up at 5 o'clock this morning to start all over again."
But one thing never changed, from the moment Clay dashed across the line in the 100 until he trotted across in the 1,500. He was in the lead. "At all times, I knew Bryan was out of reach," said Leonel Suarez, whose bronze was Cuba's first medal in the event.
This was the triumph for which Clay had been preparing for eight years. Though he won the silver in Athens behind Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic, Clay had been pointing for Beijing. "We said all along that this would be the Olympics where we were going to make it happen," Clay said.
The question was whether Clay would be in one piece when his moment came. Finishing major decathlons has been a challenge for him. He pulled out of the US championships in 2006 with low blood sugar and again in 2007 with a sore left knee. At last year's world meet in Japan, where Clay went in as defending champion, he withdrew after four events with an injured right quadriceps.
This time, though, Clay was fully fit and after winning the 100 and long jump and placing second in the shot, he was sitting pretty after Day 1, up by 88 points on Krauchanka with his best events to come. Once he finished second in the hurdles and won the discus to open Day 2, Clay was ahead by 283 points and pulling away, though he said he wasn't counting.
After nine events, his lead was an all but insurmountable 479 points. "This is Brian day," conceded Krauchanka. All Clay had to do was finish the 1,500 to win, but it might as well have been 10,000. "The 1,500 for me is a tough race," he said. "Just knowing I had to finish wasn't any comfort. Knowing I still had to put one foot ahead of the other for 5 minutes and 6 seconds was a challenge, but I knew that if I finished, I would win the gold medal."
Before the starting gun, Clay told Sebrle that he wanted him to run the 1,500. "I want you to be at the finish line when I'm done," he told the Czech, who was well out of contention in fifth and had the option to withdraw. "It meant something for me to have him there. I was there when he won and I wanted him to be there when I won."
It was a formal changing of the guard, with Clay literally pulling the exhausted Sebrle up off the track so that the former champ could raise his hand. "Bryan Clay is king now, and I was before," said Sebrle, who came in as world titlist but had been slowed by a hamstring injury this year and wasn't a threat. "It was just about me giving him the crown for the next four years."
There was a time when that crown was a ticket to fame and wealth. Morris, the auto salesman who won in Berlin in 1936, made a couple of movies and went on to play for the Lions. Mathias, who won in 1948 and 1952, did endorsements, went to Hollywood, and was elected to Congress. Johnson became an actor and sportscaster and Jenner became a motivational speaker, sports commentator, and game show and reality TV icon.
Clay may not get to keep up with the Kardashians, as Jenner does, but the World's Greatest Athlete has what he came here for - the gold medal and membership in a most exclusive fraternity.
"I get to be a part of history now in the US," Clay said. "The thought of some little kid saying, 'I want to be a decathlete like Bryan Clay' blows my mind. It's probably one of the most amazing things in the world."
John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com. 