2016 Olympic 800m bronze medalist Clayton Murphy retires from pro track

I always wondered what his career might have been like had he not attempted the 1500/800 double at USAs in 2017. He got injured during the attempt and was never quite the same (even though he still had a solid career).

I guess he refused to cross over to the dark side/run dirty and chose to retire instead.

AlSal ruined his career with ridiculous overtraining - he actually just used Murphy as a pacer for the athletes he was actually worried about (Rupp, Kajelcha, etc.). Murphy lost several seasons before getting back to his old coach and finding some of his old form. Salazar was horrible at coaching pure middle distance runners.

Agree on this. I think he could have been the best 800m guy in the world in that period if he had stayed at Akron and not gotten flamed out by NOP. Whatever AlSal had him do those years was evidently too much for his body

Honestly had he just went for 800m he had a great shot at the world title that year

Exactly! Salazar literally ruined a great talent. Nike sending him to Salazar was literally criminal. With the list of of athletes injured by Nike/Schumacher the past several years one has to wonder what’s really going on.

I followed Clayton pretty closely since he's basically the same age as me and ran my favorite events. I had never heard of him until 2015 when he got called up to the US team in Beijing when Nick Symmonds snubbed USATF. 2016 he was the man! Crushed a strong NCAA 1500 field, then won the trials 800, and finally capped it off with a bronze medal! I still can't believe he never ran faster than that 1:42.93 in Rio. He still had a great career but I remember thinking he would have a career kind of like Symmonds since he wasn't a stud out of high school and it seemed like the sky was the limit. It just goes to show, you have to enjoy it while it lasts because a career in this sport can go all over the place! Still a great career!

Clayton was still with his college coach when he did the double. He didn’t join NOP until that next fall.

The double didn’t ruin his career. Joining up with Salazar ruined it. Read more closely.

I'd forgotten that he had a bronze medal. Congrats to him on a great career

God no!

You have no idea what you're talking about about. That's not remotely true. Before you go spouting some BS at least get some facts straight. He never worked out with those guys.

Also, Salazar and co produced great middle distance athletes and times. Like him and his people or not, but his results speak volumes.

You’re full of it. The guy is right. Murphy in fact worked out with Kajelcha (and other long distance guys)too much. Eric Jenkins got the short end a lot as well. Yeah, his results speak volumes all right. You Salazar apologists need to give it up back to your plates of ropa vieja.

Murphy has seen & experienced a lot of coaching styles. He’s seen the best & the worst and knows what it takes to be at the top of the sport. He also knows what it feels like to be down and out. Because of all of that I think he would make a great coach. I’m talking about being a high school coach or something like that. I’m talking about someday being a high level collegiate coach or a coach of world class middle distance athletes.

They were around each other but they in fact did not do the same workouts. Just at the track at the same time, so nice try.

The guy who was the pacer for Rupp was Ulrey.

Jenkins also had a solid career. Ran fast but wasn't able to get top 3 at the championship meets in very competitive events. It happens.

Of course you can't think objectively and see the results for just the results. You have to bring in what you think about the person lol

Dorian Ulrey is another MD runner that comes to mind with regards to Salazar ruining careers.

With the new NCAA rules and we've seen the utter domination of big name schools in long distance event over the years now. We will never see a male athlete from a small school win a long distance event in the NCAA ever again. By the way his improvement curve in the 800m might be the most impressive one of all time, check athletic.net. We'll never know if he was truly clean during those years, going from relatively unknown to kicking behind Makhloufi and the greatest 800m runner of all time.

Had went? Is English your third language?