The American triple jumper has picked up title after title after title in recent years. As if being a two-time Olympic champion weren’t enough, he has also won gold at three of the last four IAAF World Championships.
On top of all that, Taylor is also an undisputed Diamond League legend. He has picked up six Diamond Trophies in the last eight years, and is second only to Renaud Lavillenie in the list of the competitions most successful athletes.
Taylor won his first Diamond Trophy in 2012, just months after being crowned Olympic Champion for the first time in London.
He would defend his crown in 2013, and would fall just short of an historic double Diamond Trophy in the triple and long jump in 2014.
It was in 2015, though, that Taylor truly established himself as a great of the competition. In the opening meeting of the season, he engaged in a jaw-dropping battle with Pedro Pablo Pichardo. Though he came off second best, Taylor broke the 18 metre mark for the first time in his career.
The success not only left him shocked, it also opened up his horizons. "Taking the 18m barrier out the way was really liberating," he told us that summer. "Now I just say: whatever he jumps, I need to go out there and do better."
Taylor did just that. Though Pichardo looked destined for the Diamond Trophy, winning three of the first four meetings of the season, the American never gave in. In one of the great comebacks of the competition’s history, he pulled out three wins in the final three meetings, snatching the title from Pichardo at the last.
A year later, there was simply no stopping him. Taylor won in all five of his Diamond League appearances, easing to a fifth consecutive Diamond Trophy just weeks after claiming a second Olympic gold medal.
At the beginning of 2017, he stunned everyone once again, smashing the Diamond League record with a brilliant 18.11m
Needless to say, it was only the beginning of another incredibly successful season, as Taylor rampaged to yet another Diamond Trophy.
It remains to be seen whether he can pull level with Lavillenie this season by picking up a seventh Diamond Trophy, but whatever happens, Christian Taylor’s status as a Diamond League legend is now beyond all reasonable doubt.