Hawaii's Bryan Clay Wins Gold in Olympic Decathlon

Hawaii's Bryan Clay opened a lead over his closest competitor in today’s first four of five final events and then held on with a disappointing 13th place finish in the final event, the 1500 meters, to win the Olympic decathlon with 8791 points.

Clay wasn't able to pick up enough points to break Roman Sebrle's 2004 Olympic record of 8893 points, but Clay fulfilled all expectations by winning the event in which he took home a silver medal from Athens in 2004.

In winning the decathlon Clay finished first in four of the competition’s ten events - the 100 meter, long jump, 110 meter hurdles and discus throw. He finished second in the shot put and pole vault.

Bryan Clay was born in Texas but moved to Hawaii at the age of 3 and grew up in Honolulu, where he lived until he left for college in the fall of 1998. He is a graduate of James B. Castle High School in Kane'ohe, O'ahu. He currently lives in Glendora, California with his wife Sarah and their first child, Jacob Ezra Clay.

Clay's gold medal is the second for Hawaii in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Natasha Kai of O'ahu's North Shore became Hawaii's first gold medalist of the Beijing Games as a member of the gold medal winning U.S. women's soccer team.

Hawaii has a chance for more Olympic gold this weekend with players on both the U.S. men's and women's volleyball teams.

_{Photo by Photo by Mark Dadswell/Getty Images}