Reigning Olympic decathlon champion Bryan Clay was disqualified from the event after a stumble in the 110m hurdles on Saturday at the US Olympic trials, dooming his bid to repeat in London.
Clay planted his left foot into the crossbar of the penultimate hurdle and stumbled to catch his footing as he fell forward, pushing down the last hurdle and finally crossing the finish line in 16.81 seconds, last in his heat.
After originally having credited Clay for the result, worth 644 points, officials announced minutes later that he had been disqualified, not clearing the last hurdle.
Clay had been third overall after the first day of the 10-event competition and would have slipped to sixth with the poor showing in the hurdles but with no time for the hurdles he fell to 16th and effectively out of contention.
Knowing that only the top three from the meet will advance to the London Olympics, Clay was left to sit on the edge of the track and bang the back of his head into a small metal fence in frustration after his heat.
Clay had taken a silver medal in the decathlon at the 2004 Athens Games as well as his gold four years ago at Beijing, when his winning margin of 240 points was the greatest at the Olympics since 1972.
No American since Dan O’Brien in 1996 had won the decathlon.
Overall leader Ashton Eaton, who won the heptathlon at this year’s world championships and was second in last year’s decathlon at the outdoor worlds, won Clay’s heat in 13.70 for 1,014 points, having won five of the first six events.
Reigning world champion Trey Hardee was second in the heat and overall in 13.71 for 1,012 points to remain second overall in the competition with Eaton leading on 5,742 and Hardee next at 5,418.
With four events remaining, Gray Horn moved into third place at 5,006 points entering the last four events — discus, pole vault, javelin and 1,500 meters.
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