Personal Bests - Christian Taylor

Published by IAAF on November 16, 2015

World and Olympic triple jump champion Christian Taylor has been one of the star performers of the 2015 season. Here the US jumper offers his take on our personal bests questions. 

My best achievement in athletics

Breaking the 18-metre barrier for the first time this year because I am now part of such a special club. Only five of us have ever achieved it. When I jumped 18.04m in Doha (Taylor’s first ever 18-metre jump) I thought it had been measured incorrectly. I had to look back in the sand to check everything was alright. It was unreal. For the next two days I couldn’t even sleep. I was in complete shock thinking about what would happen to the rest of my season because Doha was my first meet. I thought, ‘have I peaked too early?’ I planned to jump this far at the World Championships. To jump 18 metres was a goal I had since I first started track and field. It was beautiful how it all came together. 

The best piece of coaching advice

The best piece of advice I was given was by coach Eric Bowen at the Quicksilver Track Club in Atlanta when I was at high school. He said to me ‘get out of your own head’, which basically meant stop thinking about the jump so much because I can be prone to over-analysing. My current coach, Rana Reider, says the same thing and that sometimes I should just let the jumps happen.