It appears that decathlete Bryan Clay isn't content just to be one of the world's foremost athletes.

He also wants it known he's among the cleanest.

At a time when the headlines regularly remind us that the two distinctions are sometimes mutually exclusive in sports, that too many of our heroes get to the medal stand via the underground pharmacy, the Castle High graduate is going out of his way to set an example.

To do it, he's going through the testing line again — and again. At a U.S. Olympic media session in Chicago this week, Clay disclosed that he is among about a dozen prominent U.S. Olympians voluntarily submitting to a special additional regular testing under a pilot program termed "Project Believe."

"I'm anxious to let people know that I'm 100 percent clean," Clay told the media session.

Over the years he's condemned performance enhancing drugs and maintained a clean training regimen. Yet, for him, it isn't enough that he is regularly subjected to blood and urine testing at meets by U.S. and international bodies. It is only the beginning that he is pulled aside for random samples as well as summoned for surprise testing. The silver medalist at the Athens games, for some time now, has been part of the most extensive exam program the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has.

"I've been tested I don't know how many times," Clay told NBC Sports. "In a two-week period I was tested six times, blood and urine, five vials of blood each time and urine tests." All of which he commutes to on his own time and expense.

And that will continue up through the Beijing Games in August. All because the winner of the 2008 World Indoor decathlon knows that the legion of "dirty" athletes have made everybody suspect. He knows that after Marion Jones and Barry Bonds, nobody's denials or declarations of innocence hold much credence with the public any more. BALCO has cast a far-reaching shadow.

For a world class athlete these days surely there can be few things more tiresome or frustrating than working hard to excel and then being subjected to the do-they or do-they-not doping speculation and innuendo that follows any outstanding performance. Unless, of course, it is the invasive tedium of repeatedly being subjected to drug tests themselves.

Which is why we can hope that Clay and the others who have signed on with "Project Believe" reach the medal platform in Beijing with performances that affirm their message. Until then, their stand is noteworthy and deserving of cheers in itself.

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