EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — For triple jumper Christian Taylor, recent jumps have felt like a walk down memory lane.
This is a farewell tour for the two-time Olympic gold medalist, and he's soaking it all up — including selfies everywhere from Norway to Morocco to Oregon this week for the USA Track and Field Trials. It's here, at Hayward Field, where Taylor made his first Olympic team in 2012, that he begins his quest to make his third Olympic team this past season.
Whatever happens, it's a big deal for the 34-year-old, who has won four world championships and come within eight centimeters of breaking the world record after a knee injury forced him to learn to step off his other foot — essentially the equivalent of a pitcher switching hands mid-career.
“It's not just the accomplishments, but all the people who believed in me and supported me, it's beyond anything I could have ever imagined,” Taylor said.
When Taylor missed the chance to defend his Olympic title at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics because he ruptured his Achilles tendon a month before the trials, he thought that might be the end.
“But when I was on the recovery table after the surgery, I just thought: Oh, wow. And it's disappointing because I had such high expectations,” Taylor said. “But I didn't want my career, my journey, everything to end like this. That was my real motivation to come back and try to compete in another Olympics.”
He's grateful for every meet this season — a chance for him and his wife, coach Bea, a former Austrian hurdler, to explore the city without knowing when they'll be able to come back. The couple sat at their dining room table recently and discussed how every visit, to every trip, to every trial, is “the last time.”
“She was like, 'It's kind of weird to think of every sprint session, every jump session as a countdown,'” Taylor said. “I'm like, 'Let's look back, but let's stay in the moment.'”
Taylor has long been one of the leading athletes in the triple jump, which involves a sprint down the runway, followed by a hop, step and leap into the sand, and took off on her left foot to win her first Olympic title at the 2012 London Games.
Soon after, he was diagnosed with severe patellar tendonitis (jumper's knee) and doctors warned him that unless he changed his treatment he could be living with a limp for the rest of his life.
“They didn't really understand that starting over meant starting over,” explained Taylor, a multiple-time NCAA All-American at the University of Florida. “I had to learn how to jump all over again.”
At first it wasn't so good, but I soon got the hang of jumping with my right foot, and soon after that I was jumping farther than I ever had before.
“When you're faced with a challenge, your only real choice is fight or flight,” he said. “I thought, 'This can't be the end of my career.'”
On 27 August 2015, he won the gold medal at the World Championships in Beijing with a jump of 18.21 metres, which is also the second longest jump ever recorded, behind world record holder Jonathan Edwards' 18.29 metres in 1995.
“I'd like to believe that if the stars had aligned I would have been in a position to break it at some point,” said Taylor, who has landed two of the top six jumps in the history of the meet. “It's frustrating to be second, but I'm talking second all time. So, again, I don't take this record lightly and I'm very grateful, but I'd be lying if I said I don't have sleepless nights looking back on this.”
Taylor defended her Olympic title at the 2016 Rio Games by jumping on her right foot, a feat that inspired other jumpers.
“To be able to do a triple jump off your left foot and then a triple jump off your right foot is incredible,” long jumper Marquis Dendy said. “I don't think a lot of people really understand how hard it is to do that. He's in the GOAT debate. He's one of the pinnacles of the triple jump.”
For years, Taylor was bolstered by his college teammate, two-time Olympic silver medalist in the triple jump (and bronze in the long jump), Will Clay, and when Taylor ruptured his Achilles tendon, he turned to his friend and arch rival for help, as Clay had suffered a similar injury just months before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were originally scheduled to begin.
What Taylor will miss most are the connections and friendships he made through athletics, and his post-retirement plans include working closely with the Athletics Association, whose mission is to help develop and grow the sport by putting the athlete first, as well as attending athletics events from the stands.
“I've been so blessed and have had such incredible support,” Taylor said. “It feels surreal that it's almost over.”
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