For years Madison Avenue has tried to pre-package and sell us, with all the trimmings, the next great American Olympic decathlon champion.

Not with a whole lot of success, either.

Now, wouldn't it be funny if he were from right here, no fluff needed?

Somebody, heretofore without a slick advertising campaign, his own shoe line or a network stumping for him? Somebody, like, well, Beijing-bound Bryan Clay.

Clay is a self-made — but hardly self-centered — star. A success story a decade out of Castle High in the making, the hard, clean way.

Yesterday he won the decathlon in the U.S. Olympic track trials in Eugene, Ore., with a personal best 8,832 points, 59 points short of the American record.

And, maybe, just maybe, after years of being passed over in the search for the best, most marketable thing, there will be the realization that it comes in a remarkable, if hardly prototypical 5-foot-11, 185-pound package. Even if the listed height might be stretching it.

But it is no reach to say that there are few events in the Olympic Games that U.S. and global advertisers would more like to wrap in the flag than the decathlon. Since 1912, when the legendary Jim Thorpe won the competition in Stockholm, where he was told, "Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world," by Sweden's King Gustav V, the event that requires excellence across 10 disparate and demanding disciplines has carried a special cachet.

Especially in this country, where winning it helped launch political and business careers. Once upon a time the U.S. dominated, including six gold medals in a row at one point. But since Bruce Jenner (1976), he of Wheaties box fame, the U.S. has won just one.

Meanwhile marketers have tried, sometimes desperately, to project the next one. Reebok gave us Dan (O'Brien) and Dave (Johnson) in an all-out eight-month blitz preceding the Barcelona Games of 1992. Unfortunately, the first thing that could go wrong did: Dan didn't make the team. And Dave ended up with a bronze. Although Dan, after the shoes were off the shelves, did come back to take gold in 1996.

Four years ago, despite Clay's win in the trials, NBC was pushing the up-close-and-personal story of Tom Pappas. It leaned heavily on his Greek ancestry at Athens where, alas, a ruptured tendon forced his withdrawal. (Pappas qualified by finishing third yesterday).

Clay emerged from the shadows in Athens with a stunning performance to win the silver medal and has shown no signs of going away, just getting better. Clay has won a couple of world titles since and yesterday stamped himself as the man to beat in Beijing. If anyone can.

And the story is so compelling, so inspirational, it doesn't need any hype.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.