Ohio farm kid wins bronze medal in Rio

Aug 29, 2016

Clayton Murphy competed in the 800m race

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

A farm kid from New Madison, Ohio, represented the United States at the Olympics in Rio and came home with some hardware.

Twenty-one year old Clayton Murphy won the bronze medal in the 800m race with a time of 1:42:93, the third fastest in American history. He finished behind gold medallist David Rusidha from Kenya and silver medallist Taofik Makhloufi of Algeria.

Aside from natural talent and athletic ability, those close to Murphy say his upbringing played a pivotal role in his accomplishments.

“I think growing up in agriculture played a big role in the responsibilities he took in training to be a runner,” his father, Mark, told the High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal. “To be a successful livestock showman you have to work with your animal every day and to be a successful runner you have to be diligent about your training, believe in yourself and have confidence in yourself and your results will show for it.”

At five years old, Clayton showed his first pig, a blue-butt barrow, and won the middleweight of his division.

Mark said Clayton had a knack for finding ways to get a competitive advantage while showing, and that’s translated into his running career.

“He knew how to show a pig to find the open holes in the show ring so the judge could see him right away,” he said. “When he ran at the Olympics, he knew how to find the open holes, shoot the gap or hold-up in the race as well.”

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.