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BEIJING - It’s no surprise that Olympic Champion Christian Taylor is one of the favorites for gold in the triple jump at the World Championships. What is a surprise is that Taylor went from jumping 17.51m in 2014 to 18.06m in 2015 all while changing his take-off foot. 

 

“The most difficult part of changing legs is the timing and handling the speed, being comfortable with being uncomfortable,” Taylor said in the Team USA press conference Friday at Beijing's National Stadium. 

At just 25 years-old, Taylor has accomplished more than most Olympic athletes in their entire career, including Olympic gold in London 2012, a World title in 2011, and a World Indoor silver medal in 2012. In 2012 at 22, Taylor’s gold medal made him the youngest man to win the triple jump Olympic title in 100 years. 

 

However a career-threatening injury forced Taylor to change his approach to the jump, a decision that didn’t come easy as an athlete dependent on rhythm and routine. 

 

“The toughest part was more mental than physical because in triple jump we bound off of left and right foot all the time so in practice it’s normal exercise, but to actually do it with the speed was the most difficult part,” Taylor said. 

 

After years of jumping off of his left foot, Taylor’s knees were close to giving out and he was forced to re-learn his approach on his right foot. The change of approach paid off when Taylor was crowned the 2014 Diamond League champion in Zurich. 

 

“All of 2014 I just did my half approach because mentally I just wasn’t ready to push myself for all the speed that I’d be bringing from the 18-20 step approach…but I think Zurich was kind of the hump, the Diamond League final, it was the biggest change for me to be able to jump 17.50m and from that distance I said, ‘Well maybe it’s time to man-up, grow a pair and start jumping,” Taylor said. 

 

Since the Diamond League final jump of 17.51m, Taylor has exploded in the 2015 season beginning with a personal best of 18.04m in just his second competition of the year in Doha. He finished runner-up to Cuba's Pedro Pablo Pichardo, the current world-leader at 18.08m.
 

Taylor and Pichardo pose together after competing at Doha Diamond League in May. 

The two athletes have been trading off the world lead spot for the past three months, highlighted by a showdown in Lausanne that saw Taylor jump a personal best of 18.06m, 0.07m ahead of Pichardo and 0.10m further than his previous personal best on his left foot. 

 

“For the longest time I made the excuse that if the distances weren’t coming, I’d say that’s my new leg or that’s my off leg, but now this is just jumping,” Taylor said. 

 

“There’s no more excuses. No one else cares if I’m missing a spike or doing whatever, there’s no excuses. People are going out there to beat everyone else so once I put that out of my head I just said, 'Well I need to be the one that jumps furthest from the board.”

 

With a healthy Taylor and a growing rivalry with Pichardo, the World Championship final is set to provide the setting for a potential world record to be broken. The mark to beat is Jonathan Edwards’ jump of 18.29m from 1995. 

 

“When you talk about world records, this is the greatest all-time and it’s almost for the stars to align. You need the perfect wind, the perfect competition and competitors really going after it so to have both of us at such a high level I think is really good and I think it’s going to make for an even better show next year,” Taylor said. 

 

“I’m not so much worried about Pichardo as I am making sure that I’m the healthiest and best man out there come the finals.”