EUGENE, Ore. » Bryan Clay hadn’t competed in a decathlon in 13 months, and the rust showed.
The reigning Olympic champion, out of Castle High School and Azusa Pacific University, was nowhere near his 2008 Beijing Olympic gold medal pace but still held second place after day one of the decathlon at the USA National Championships on Thursday at historic Hayward Field.
Clay, 31, was nowhere near first-day event leader Ashton Eaton, 23, the University of Oregon product competing before his home fans, either.
Eaton tops the 15-man field with 4,604 points after five events. Clay trails at 4,196, just 21 ahead of third-place long shot Edward Broadbent.
Still, he’s in solid position to nail down a place on the USA team bound for the IAAF World Championships of Track and Field in Daegu, Korea, in late August.
Clay’s most recent decathlon took place in Gotzis, Austria, in May 2010, and he won it with a score of 8,483 points, tops in the world for last year. He’d totaled 8,791 points winning at Beijing and had a career-best of 8,832 taking the 2008 USA Trials at Hayward Field.
"I knew from the beginning I wasn’t going to be sharp, and that was exactly right," said Clay, whose sights remain focused on the medal stand at the London Olympic Games of 2012, where he hopes to become the first athlete ever to win three Olympic decathlon medals.
While Eaton blazed to a 10.33 clocking in the opening 100 meters, Clay was struggling to a 10.64.
Eaton topped Clay in three other events, too — the long jump (25-73⁄4 to 24-1 3⁄4), the high jump (6-83⁄4 to 6-63⁄4) and the 400 meters (46.35 to 49.98).
Clay got the measure of Eaton only in the shot put (46-9 to 46-43⁄4).
Broadbent topped them all in the high jump, clearing 7 feet and a quarter-inch.
But Clay has two of his strongest events, the discus and javelin, coming up today, with the 110 high hurdles, pole vault and 1,500 meters also on tap.
"That 100 was kind of a shocker to me," said Clay.
"That was kind of like … whoa … I wasn’t expecting that, to be as bad as that was. I was expecting something like, possibly, 10.50.
"So, feeling I was in a little bit of a hole made it kind of hard for me to get into the rest of the meet, to get into my rhythm.
"Mentally, I was fighting myself to keep going."
He never gave in to an inner voice telling him to bail out.
Next came the long jump and Clay said, "for some reason I always have some problem with that event here. I’ve never really long jumped well at Hayward. But I had no excuses.
"I thought I’d do better in the shot put. I warmed up well. I had some big throws there. But when I got into the meet, for some reason, I was a little bit frazzled, a little distracted. Maybe that 100 was still on my mind.
"The high jump, by then I was a little bit fatigued. In the 400, the body felt some more fatigue.
"But that’s what happens in this thing. That’s the decathlon.
"I still feel strong, all my technical events have been going well in practice. Physically, everything’s fine. Now, I’ve just got to get competition-sharp and step it up."
Most importantly, Clay’s old confidence is still there.
"My coaches keep reminding me and reminding me that this is the way I was going to feel," he said. "We’re really into this just two weeks of getting sharp. It’s still six weeks to get ready for Daegu. We just have to make the team. If we can make the team, we’ll be ready to go at Daegu."
