The Official Site of Bryan Clay

Wed, Jul 2nd 2008, 13:03

Bryan Clay overcomes many hurdles to chase Olympic gold

By WAYNE COFFEY
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

EUGENE, Ore. – The greatest athlete in the country was sipping a cup of coffee in a hotel hospitality room here Tuesday morning, scarcely 12 hours after he had finished his two-day, 10-event grind at the Olympic track and field trials, and done it better than he ever has.

He was wearing a plain white T-shirt and baggy khaki shorts, an outfit that concealed the staggering athletic pedigree of his 5-11, 185-pound body. For 45 minutes, Bryan Clay – one of the best decathletes in history – talked not merely about his big faith and his big ambitions for Beijing, but about his whole unlikely path here; about a delinquent youth spent on an idyllic island, about the fights and food stamps and anger-driven threats and outbursts that sometimes made his mother wonder if her son were heading for a life of Hawaiian crime, not five-ring glory.

Clay, 28, is half-Japanese, half African-American. That hasn’t been the only balancing act in his life.

“I don’t think there’s any way I could be the person I am, to be a mentally tough person, without having gone through all those things I went through,” Clay said. “I’ve completely turned my life around.”

A two-time world champion and silver medalist in Athens four years ago, Clay is a breakout star waiting to happen, a guy with leading-man looks and an affable demeanor, and a personal story he tells with candor and eloquence. He put up the best score of his life (8,832) in winning the trials, the best U.S. total since Dan O’Brien set the mark (8,891) 16 years ago, and the best in the world in four years – despite being perhaps the smallest decathlon athlete on the planet. Clay’s Olympic teammates, Trey Hardee and Tom Pappas, are both in the 6-5, 210 neighborhood…

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