“I feel like triple jump is one of the more artistic-looking events … it kind of just flows.”
It’s an applicable selection of phrases for somebody who divides his time between athletic tracks and music tracks. A two-time Olympic silver medalist within the triple leap, 29-year-old Claye is additionally a recording artist who has began his personal report label, Desert Water Records.
“Music is my love language, you know?” he says. “That’s why I can’t really shake creating it. I literally get chills when I make certain songs … it’s something that I want to share with the world. I want to be one of the biggest artists ever.”
Claye, who additionally has his personal trend label, featured in YG’s “IDGAF” in 2013 — the video for which has accrued practically 70 million views on YouTube and contains the triple jumper sporting his Olympic medals.
In phrases of the artists he hopes to emulate, Claye lists Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Nipsey Hussle and Dr. Dre.
“I want to be on that type of level, music-wise,” he says. “And I think because I’m an athlete, people kind of overlook that.
“They assume that I’m doing it simply because I can as a hobby. But it is probably not a hobby for me. It’s one thing that basically is from my soul.”
Last year, following the postponement of Tokyo 2020, Claye combined his love for music and athletics into “Dreams Don’t Die” — a song that reflects on how athletes were forced to put their Olympic dreams on hold.
It includes lines such as “4 years straight, my eye’s been on the prize,” “it is a lesson when coping with father time,” and the refrain “desires do not die, they simply multiply”; the accompanying music video is a montage of Claye and other athletes training and competing.
“That was actually how I used to be feeling, and it was one thing that I knew all Olympians had been feeling,” he says.
“This dream that we now have — to be an Olympian, to be an Olympic medalist, to signify our nations, to exit and simply lay all of it on the enjoying subject — is one thing that we dream of. We dream of these moments.
“It almost seemed like the dream was just denied … but for it to be postponed — you know, you got to keep that energy up.”
And maintaining his power is precisely what Claye has executed.
“This will be the first Olympics that I’ve had five years to prepare for,” he says, including that he feels this is “one of the best Olympic buildups I’ve ever had.”
He additionally has a bronze medal from the lengthy leap in 2012 when he grew to become the primary man since 1936 — and the primary American since 1904 — to win Olympic medals in each the lengthy leap and the triple leap.
Having dominated out the prospect of a correct indoor season amid coronavirus restrictions, his focus is now on competing at meets in Southern California in April earlier than preparation begins for the Olympic trials in June.
Beyond that, he hopes to have the ability to journey abroad for competitions forward of Tokyo.
“The feeling of me proposing was a better feeling than me being on the podium, honestly,” he says. “That’s something that will forever be a memory in my and my wife’s lives.”
This 12 months’s Olympics will doubtless be a more subdued affair for Claye in comparison with when he was encircled by a mass of spectators throughout his marriage proposal in Rio.
Organizers say that the opportunity of abroad followers with the ability to attend this 12 months’s Games will change into clear by the tip of March — a determination prone to have an effect on subject athletes more sharply than different Olympians.
Jumpers would possibly spend more than an hour and a half out on the observe throughout competitions, relying on the power of the group to gasoline their efficiency. But Claye stays undaunted by the prospect of a Games with few followers.
“As an entertainer, I would like the crowd to be there,” he says, “but I don’t really think it dictates my performance. I’ve had big jumps when there was no one in the stadium.
“I do know that folks shall be watching from the consolation of their houses so I’m going to place on a present for them.”
In Tokyo, Claye could achieve the rare feat of winning medals at three separate Olympics; this time, however, he hopes to strike gold.
“That’s the purpose … that is what we practice for,” he says. “If this child from Phoenix, Arizona, was ready to do this, I believe that might be a fairly cool factor for the world to see.”
