Bryan Clay, Trey Hardee, and Tom Pappas qualify for the 2008 U.S. Olympic team

EUGENE, Ore.- Bryan Clay built a foundation for a run at a gold medal in Beijing when he won the decathlon Monday night at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials with the highest point total in the world this season. Clay made his second straight Olympics with a personal-record score of 8,832 points. That marked the best score by an American in 16 years, the best in the world in four years, and beat Dan O'Brien's Olympic Trials record.

"From the get-go, I said, 'This is what I'm going to do, these are the marks I'm going to put up,' " Clay said. "I don't care if it's headwinds, tailwinds. I don't care how I'm feeling. I'm going to make it happen today, and that's what I did."



Bryan Clay 1st Place - 8,832 Trey Hardee 2nd Place - 8,534 Tom Pappas 3rd Place - 8,511

Pappas, 31, used a first place in the pole vault (17-0¼ ) and a second place in discus to become the first U.S. decathlete to qualify for three Olympics. Hardee won the hurdles and was third in the javelin.

"Yesterday I wasn't disciplined enough. I never got in a rhythm," Clay said. "I went home last night, talked with my coaches and made the decision in my head that I was going to come out and make this happen. No matter what."

Clay was disappointed with his results during Sunday's opening events that left him with a narrow lead over Hardee, the 2006 NCAA champion, and Pappas, the 2003 world champion. But Clay found his form quickly Monday with a solid race in the 110-meter hurdles. He had the best marks in discus and javelin and cleared 16 feet, 4¾ inches in the pole vault. He needed to run the 1,500 in 4 minutes, 53 seconds to notch his personal best. He finished in 4:50.97.

On the fourth day of the U.S. Olympic track and field trials Clay won the classic event of Jim Thorpe and Rafer Johnson and Bruce Jenner and Dan O'Brien with a lifetime best 8,832 points, a bit short of O'Brien's American record 8,891 but still the highest score by an American in 16 years. Among Americans, only O'Brien, with two performances, has ever scored more than Clay, whose performance Sunday and Monday equals the 11th highest score in the history of the decathlon. Clay was followed on the U.S. Olympic team by Trey Hardee with a lifetime best 8,534 and Tom Pappas with 8,511. Pappas became the first man to make three Olympic teams in the decathlon.

"I think there's tons of room for improvement," said Clay, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist and '05 world champion. "This showed that mentally I am a very tough competitor. I am ready to break the world record. It's a matter of time. If everything is aligned ... and I can put all 10 events together, I can score really high."

The world record of 9,026 points is held by Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic, the first man to crack the 9,000-point barrier. Sebrle set his record in 2001 and is not thought to be a 9,000-point man any longer. Clay will go to the Beijing Olympics in August as the favorite to win the gold medal.

Feel free to come back to the Active.com 2008 Olympics Blog for a full series of Decathlon posts, by Coach Corey, leading up to the Olympic Games in Beijing. The count down is on as were only 53 days away from finding out WHO will be the "World's Greatest Athlete"!