Clay was born in Austin, Texas[2] and raised in Hawaii. He is Afro-Asian. His mother, Michele Ishimoto, was a Japanese immigrant to America. His father, Greg Clay, was African-American.[3] His parents divorced when he was in elementary school and he was raised primarily by his mother. He has a younger brother, Nikolas, who was also a standout athlete on the Azusa Pacific University track team. Clay graduated from James B. Castle High School (Kaneohe, Hawaii) in 1998.
On March 23, 2013, Clay was inducted into the Azusa Pacific Hall of Fame in track and field.
Clay is married to Sarah Smith. They have a son, Jacob (born 2005) and two daughters, Katherine (Kate) (born 2007) and Elizabeth (Ellie) (born 2010).[4]
Clay is a devoted Christian. He believes that a balance of mental, physical and emotional health will help him in athletic competition.[4]
Clay won the silver medal at the 2004 Olympics, and finished first at the 2005 World Championships. He was unable to complete the 2007 World Championships due to injuries, dropping out after four events in which he claimed the competition's best scores in the 100 metres and the long jump.[5]
Clay won the gold medal at the 2008 Olympics in the decathlon.[6][7] His victory margin of 240 points in the 2008 Beijing Olympics was the largest since 1972.[8] The Olympic decathlon champion is referred to as the "World's Greatest Athlete" and prior to the Olympics, Clay was tested by SPARQ to establish his SPARQ Rating across a number of different sports. The test is meant to measure sport-specific athleticism and in the football test Clay recorded a score of 130.40, the highest ever recorded up to that point. By comparison, Reggie Bush scored a 93.38 on the popular test.[9]
He is one of two Olympians featured on a special edition post-Beijing Olympics Wheaties cereal box; the other was gymnastNastia Liukin.[10]
His attempts to regain his World Championships decathlon title were thwarted by a hamstring injury in June 2009. This caused him to drop out of the US trials; thus, he missed the chance to compete at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.[11] He returned to action in 2010 and won the men's heptathlon at the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships. At the start of his outdoor season he won the 2010 Hypo-Meeting, holding off the challenge from Romain Barras.[12]
In 2012, Clay had returned to the Olympic Trials in hopes of making a third Olympics and defending his title. Defending the title was a feat only achieved twice, by Bob Mathias and by Daley Thompson. That attempt was quashed at the beginning of the second day, when he tripped over the 9th hurdle in the 110 metres hurdles, then off balance pushed over the tenth hurdle. He was initially disqualified for pushing over the hurdle, but that decision was reversed, allowing him a mark for running 16.81 s, last in the field and over 1.5 s slower than the next best competitor.[13] Thinking he had been disqualified in the hurdles, Clay followed the hurdle accident with three straight fouls in the discus throws, but he still completed the competition.
