(Reuters) -Olympic and world triple jump champion Christian Taylor looks set to miss the Tokyo Olympics after tearing an Achilles tendon just two months before the Games start, with his coach ruling him out for the rest of the year.
The American, who won gold at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics, was injured during a meeting in Ostrava in the Czech Republic on Wednesday.
“It was his right Achilles and a complete rupture. We got him to a surgeon in Germany and got it repaired this morning,” Rana Reider, Taylor’s long time coach, told Reuters.
“The surgery went well and they were able to repair it. It was a clean break and a clean surgery,” Reider said. “He was pretty happy with it (the way the surgery went).”
Asked if he thought Taylor would be back this year, Reider said: “I don’t think so.”
The U.S. athletics federation wished the 30-year-old a speedy recovery without confirming the injury.
“Wishing back-to-back Olympic champion and four-time World champion @Taylored2jump a speed recovery,” the USATF said on Twitter.
The Tokyo Olympic Games are due to start on July 23 after being delayed by a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
(Reporting by Gene Cherry, Writing by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Ed Osmond and Pritha Sarkar)
