A few hours after claiming the Heptathlon silver medal at the World Indoor Championships in March, Bryan Clay was overheard asking a USATF official: “Does this mean I’ll get my picture in the media guide next time?”

The team official nodded, smiling. “Yes it does,” she said. 

It was an oversight that Clay’s performances since will not allow to happen again. Indeed, if his 6365 point performance in Budapest, making him the second highest scoring American ever, signalled his rise from obscurity, his 8820 point tally for Olympic silver in Athens ensured that the 24-year-old would not be forgotten again.

Swift elevation

“I’ve been thinking about this, and dreaming about this probably since I was eight years old, when I saw Carl Lewis and all those guys running in the Olympics back in ’88,” Clay said after a performance that elevated him to the number-six position all-time among decathletes, and second only to 1996 Olympic champion Dan O’Brien among Americans.

 “I don’t know any words right now to describe having this silver medal. I remember sitting down and watching people like Dan O'Brien, Dave Johnson and Chris Huffins put up huge scores at the Olympic Games and run around with the flag. I get goose bumps watching. Now I know I just surpassed most of them.”

It took an Olympic record score of 8893 points by World record holder Roman Sebrle to relegate the Hawaii native to second in Athens where his 8820 was the highest non-winning total ever, and an effort well within reach of O’Brien’s national record 8891.

Clay began his rise from international obscurity in Budapest, where he set personal bests in five of the seven disciplines, there too finishing second to Sebrle. But domestically, where he was overshadowed by World champion Tom Pappas, he had already placed himself among the top Americans in the event.

In 1999, he won the national and Pan-American junior titles - the former with a personal best 7312-point tally - and improved to a still-modest 7373 points the following year, in which he won the NAIA title for California’s Azuza Pacific College.

2001 breakthrough

But 2001 marked a dramatic improvement, a season in which he broke through the 8000 point barrier with his third place 8169 point finish at the National championships. He moved up a notch at the national championships the following year, tallying 8230. His 2003 highlight included another national championship runner-up finish with a PB 8482. But injury after five events at the World Championships in Paris kept him from the international limelight last year.

Avoiding injury

“That was the big issue for us coming in to the Olympics,” Clay said. “I think the last two times I’ve been in a major competition I’ve gotten hurt. In Paris I felt like I was ready to go, I felt peaked. But I pulled my hamstring four days before the start of the competition while I was doing a hurdles practice.”

To prepare fully for the U.S. Olympic trials this year, he passed on an invitation to compete at the Hypo Meeting in Gotzis in May, a difficult decision that reaped huge dividends when he emerged victorious in Sacramento less than two months later when he claimed his first national championships, topping heavily favoured World champion Tom Pappas with another big personal best of 8660 points, 143 ahead of Pappas.

Never again to be overlooked!

Yet in Athens, he was still viewed as somewhat of an outsider, again overshadowed not only by his teammate, but also by one of the most solid fields ever assembled in Olympic competition. It wasn’t until the end of the first day, where he sat comfortably in third position, that people finally began to take notice. Still third after eight events, a PB 69.71 in the javelin propelled Clay into second, just 63 points behind Sebrle, securing a silver medal that few would have predicted just a few months earlier.

“I think people kind of take me for granted or don’t give me enough credit sometimes,” he said in Athens. That’s an oversight, like the one in Budapest, that is unlikely to ever happen again.

“I’ve never been in the limelight, but it doesn’t really bother me because I’ve always known what I could do.” Now, the rest of us do as well.

Bob Ramsak for the IAAF