Clay leaves all of his doubts in the dust

EUGENE, Ore. -- Bryan Clay had to remind himself he was better than the performances he was leaving on the track and in the jumping pits of Hayward Field.

Clay, the Athens decathlon silver medalist and 2005 world champion, opened the U.S. Olympic trials with a fine 100-meter time, matching his personal-best of 10.39 seconds. But swirling winds in the long jump led him to change his approach, which threw off his rhythm and dogged him from one event to the next.

Clay led the field after the first day, but by only 22 points. With a berth on the Beijing team within his reach but not yet in his grasp, Clay took a hard look at himself and wasn’t entirely pleased with what he saw.

The Glendora resident, who still trains with the coach who guided him at Azusa Pacific, Kevin Reid, started strong on Monday with a personal-best 13.75 in the 110-meter hurdles. After that he never looked back, compiling a career-best 8,832 points and setting a record for the U.S. Olympic trials.

Trey Hardee of Austin, Texas, finished second with 8,534 points and Oregon native Tom Pappas delighted the crowd by grabbing the final berth with 8,511 points and becoming the first American to make three Olympic decathlon teams.

But it was Clay who carried the night, willing himself to be calm and cool and use his head as much as his legs and arms and torso.

“A lot of times in the decathlon when you try harder you do worse,” he said. “It’s a fine line between coming out this morning and saying, ‘I’m going to get it done today,’ and saying that and then trying and messing everything up.”

Clay, who won the 100, high jump, discus and javelin, came close to the American record of 8,891 points set by Dan O’Brien in 1992. Clay said he really wanted that mark and was “OK” with setting the trials record, but after reflecting for a while, he realized what a tremendous feat this really was.

If he needed uncommon strength to uncork the top discus throw of the day, 173 feet, and follow that with solid efforts in the pole vault (16 feet 4 3/4 inches) and javelin (231 feet, 5 inches), it paled beside the deep resolve he needed to pull himself away from the brink of self-doubt.

“I think this is one of the toughest decathlons I’ve had to deal with just because I was caught so off-guard at the beginning,” he said.

But not at the end.

By the final event, the 1,500, Clay was able to jog home in the 13th-best time, 4 minutes, 50.97 seconds. Afterward, he flung himself onto the track on his back, gasping for air for several seconds.

When he arose, he smiled and walked over to the stands to pick up his son Jacob, who turns 3 today, and carry him as they waved to the crowd.

“It’s very, very possible we could come home with a sweep,” Clay said of the decathlon team’s medal prospects. “I think this is one of the strongest teams we’ve ever put together.”

It didn’t look that way Sunday, when he stumbled before he reached an epiphany.

He recalled telling himself, “Hey, I feel like I am better than everybody else out here. If you’re looking at medals and all those types of things, I’ve got more of those than anybody else out here. I should not have done as bad as I did. . . .

“Having a bad day or not, mentally I should have been prepared and know that this is just how it goes and I wasn’t there.”

His focus returned Monday. It seems surprising that a world-class athlete would momentarily lose his way, as Clay did. But he may have become stronger for having won a difficult battle.

“I think the reason why I wasn’t able to put it behind me as easily as I would have liked to is I have very high expectations of myself,” he said of his initial struggles.

“And so having those high expectations I know what I’m capable of doing. I’m kind of a perfectionist and when I don’t execute what I’m capable of doing, it really upsets me. And this being my first decathlon [of the season], things aren’t going to go right, and mentally I just didn’t come into the meet the way I should have.”

In essence, he was reminded of a very basic lesson.

“You’ve got to go with the flow,” he said. “I think I generally do that very, very well. I’ve had problems at the Olympics with being pushed into another heat you’re not in, warming up and having to come back. All kinds of things happen.”

And sometimes they happen for the best, though it may not seem that way at the time.

“Mentally I am a very tough competitor,” he said. “My conditioning and the way my training has been going, I am ready to break the world record.

“There’s no doubt in my mind I am ready to break the American record and the world record. It’s just a matter of time at this point. I have to put all 10 events together.”

He left no doubts that physically and mentally he’s ready to go with the gold-medal flow.

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Helene Elliott can be reached at helene.elliott@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Elliott, go to latimes.com/elliott.