Christian Taylor, the 2012 and 2016 Olympic triple jump champion, will miss the Tokyo Games after rupturing an Achilles at a meet on Wednesday, according to the Instagram of his fiancée, Austrian hurdler Beate Schrott.
“I am disappointed to not be able to go for my third consecutive Olympic gold in Tokyo, but I will be back,” Taylor said in a statement Friday, according to NBC Sports’ Lewis Johnson. “I have 426 days until triple jump at Eugene 2022 [World Championships] and I am already setting my target on that podium.”
Taylor, 30, pulled up after a takeoff for a triple jump at the Ostrava Golden Spike in the Czech Republic. He underwent surgery, according to Schrott’s Instagram.
“I know he’ll get through this,” was posted on Schrott’s account. “He will fight his way back. He’ll come out of this situation not smelling like smoke.”
Taylor has been one of the world’s dominant athletes, also winning the world title in 2011, 2015, 2017 and 2019.
During that stretch, he changed his takeoff leg and then posted the second-farthest triple jump in history -- 18.21 meters -- to miss Brit Jonathan Edwards’ world record from 1995 by the length of a cigarette.
Countryman Will Claye, a teammate of Taylor’s at the University of Florida, took silver at the last two Olympics and the last two world championships behind Taylor.
Claye, 29, has the world’s two best outdoor triple jumps since the start of 2019.
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