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American Christian Taylor retains Olympic triple jump title

Christian Taylor retained his Olympic triple jump title Tuesday, while fellow American Will Claye celebrated his silver by going down on one knee to propose to his fiancee. Taylor comfortably saw off his rivals in the Rio sunshine, the 26-year-old setting a season's best 17.86 metres with his first leap, good enough to beat Claye in a repeat of their one-two finish in London four years ago. "The job is done," said Taylor. "Back to back, it's very special." Asked if was frustrated at missing out once more on Jonathan Edwards's world record of 18.29 set at 1995 world championships, the world champion sighed: "Oh gosh, for sure. I've been at the 'almost' mark for such a long time. I have so much respect for Jonathan's distance but now the fire burns even stronger because I know it's in the tank." The flame of romance was burning for Claye, who had plotted his dashing proposal to long-time girlfriend, hurdler Queen Harrison, over breakfast. "I woke up this morning and said today is going to be the best day of my life," he said. "It was stressful, man, because I didn't know if she was going to say yes or not." Claye pushed hard to overturn Taylor's advantage, fouling on a big third jump which nibbled the 18-metre line. Claye's top effort was a personal best of 17.76. "We are equally talented," said Claye, who beat Taylor at his country's Olympic trials. "It's just who executes on that day, whoever executes better on that day is going to win. We've been blessed with this talent. "We're stil young -- Christian is 26 and I'm 25. Jonathan Edwards was jumping until his mid-30s so we have many more years ahead of us to hopefully take down the record." But Taylor, prowling the track and muttering furiously to himself between jumps, proved too strong, also recording two jumps of 17.77 which would also have been enough for gold. "I never thought on my first jump that would be the gold medal jump," said Taylor. "This is what I live for, this is what pushes me." World indoor champion Dong Bin took bronze to give China a first Olympic triple jump medal, leaping to another PB of 17.58, like the two Americans also on his first attempt. Dong's countryman Cao Shuo, the reigning Asian Games champion, finished fourth in 17.13 with Colombia's John Murillo fifth (17.09). Portugal's Nelson Evora, who won gold at the 2008 Beijing Games, finished sixth with a best of 17.03, the only other man to jump over 17 metres.