Posted on: Wednesday, August 25, 2004

So close, yet so far from gold

By Elliott Denman
Gannett News Service

ATHENS, Greece — Seventy-three points.

By decathlon standards, that's absolutely minuscule. A run-in with a high hurdle. A fouled long jump. A discus throw centimeters out of the sector. Small matters just like that.

To Hawai'i's Bryan Clay, though, 73 points meant the world — and possibly something to spur him on in the future.

They are all that separated him from archrival Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic in the Olympic decathlon that closed out at Olympic Stadium yesterday.

Sebrle, the 29-year-old world record holder, won all the little battles within the bigger battle and took the gold medal — and the title of "world's greatest athlete" that goes with it, breaking the Olympic record in the process.

It's most likely Clay, who took the silver medal yesterday, who will stand in the way of Sebrle winning it again in Beijing in 2008.

Clay concedes height and heft to most of his rivals. But he counters that with speed and explosiveness.

"Bryan and Dmitry (Karpov) made it very tough for me," Sebrle said. "And Bryan, I know he is going to get much better."

Said Clay: "At (the U.S. Olympic track) trials I said I felt like I left a lot of points on the track. "I felt like I picked some up (at the Olympics)."

Paul Terek, another American in the competition, had no doubt about Clay's ability.

"I said last year after worlds that Bryan would be a medal contender for the Olympics," Terek said. "He's a phenomenal athlete. He's very explosive."

While many thought Clay would be the decathlete of the future, he proved his time has already begun.

"There's no words to describe this," he said. "Everybody knows that for so long this has been a dream of mine. It just kind of brings meaning to what I've been doing the last 12 years of my life."

Knight Ridder News Service contributed to this report.