BEIJING — Bryan Clay can sleep now, and he can dream about being the Olympic decathlon champion. When he wakes up, it will still be true.

Sleep deprived and exhausted, Clay persevered to win the decathlon Friday at the Beijing Olympics, joining the likes of Jim Thorpe, Bob Mathias, Bruce Jenner and Dan O'Brien in American athletic lore.

"Those are all the guys that I look up to," said Clay, a Castle High School graduate. "I think this is the start of something good, and I'm hoping we can continue to do this through 2012. It's been a little while since we've had the gold medal in the decathlon brought back to the States. I'm happy with being the person to do it. I hope the Wheaties box and all those types of things happen."

Clay, 28, won the silver medal in the decathlon in the 2004 Athens Olympics but had long targeted the Beijing Olympics as the competition for which he wanted to aggressively pursue a gold medal. And so he went after it from the first event on Thursday, the 100-meter dash, and continued until he had all but locked up the title by the start of the final event on Friday, the 1,500-meter run.

He scored 8,791 points, 240 more than silver medalist Andrei Krauchanka of Belarus. American Trey Hardee had been challenging for a medal, until he dropped out of the competition after failing to record a score in pole vault.

Clay maintained first place throughout the decathlon by winning three events — the 100-meters, long jump and discus — and finishing second in the shot put and 110-meter hurdles. He was third in the pole vault and javelin.

Between all of that, he slept just four hours, from 1-5 a.m. on Friday.

"I'm actually not sure that I was asleep at 1, but I was in bed at 1," Clay said. "You just lay there with the lights off and pray that you fall asleep."

One of the lesser-appreciated demands of the grueling competition is the two-day timeframe. Clay left National Stadium after Thursday's events at 10 p.m. and had to return by 8 a.m. on Friday. A midnight meal of Kobe beef, following a massage and an ice bath Thursday night, helped refresh his body for what turned out to be the most crucial part of the competition on Friday morning.

Coming off his strong Thursday performance, Clay was worried about losing ground to Krauchanka on Friday. Instead, he was able to extend his lead by winning the discus with a decathlon Olympic record throw of 176 feet, 5 3/4 inches.

When Clay finished tied for third with Krauchanka in the pole vault, both of them clearing 16-4 3/4, Clay and his coaching staff realized that winning the gold medal would soon be a reality.

"To walk away dead even with Krauchanka in the pole vault, we were ecstatic," said Kevin Reid, one of Clay's four coaches.

Throughout the final two events, javelin and the 1,500 meters, Clay began to wonder whether he could break the American record of 8,891 that O'Brien set in a non-Olympic decathlon in 1992. Clay and Reid figured he would have to run in the range of 4:46 in the 1,500 to challenge it.

That was Clay's intent, anyway, when he lined up for the start. But one lap into the race, it was evident to Mike Barnett, Clay's throwing coach watching from the first row of the stands, that Clay wouldn't be challenging the record. Eventually, Clay crossed the line in 5:06.59, last in his heat.

"He jokes that the other nine events are about accumulating points so he doesn't have to run (the 1,500) fast," Barnett said. "He absolutely hates it."

In fact, Clay said afterward that he hated every step of the 1,500 meters but felt excited at the same time, knowing that when he got to the finish line, he would be an Olympic champion.

"Now, I think I'm going to go home and go straight to bed," Clay said, two hours after the competition had ended.

Starting with Thorpe, Americans won the Olympic decathlon 10 times from 1912 to 1976. It was another 20 years before O'Brien won gold in Atlanta. Clay joined that group Friday night.

"I get to be a part of history now in the United States," Clay said. "We've got the title of world's greatest athlete now. It's back on U.S. soil. I don't know about everybody else, but that means something to me."

Dustin Dow is a writer for The Cincinnati Enquirer.