Felix and Taylor win world titles

Allyson Felix and Christian Taylor were out of their comfort zones at the track and field world championships in Beijing.

Felix, because her best event is not the 400 meters. And Taylor, because he is still getting used to leaping off his right foot in the triple jump.

What they showed Thursday is that they’re so good, they win anyway. And the timing couldn’t have been better.

Noticeably absent from the medals party early on at the worlds, the U.S. made a big push thanks to Felix and Taylor capturing gold, while Justin Gatlin finished runner-up to Usain Bolt in the 200.

With that, the U.S. has 12 medals, including three golds. That’s more medals than Kenya overall, but still three fewer golds than the African nation. At this point at the 2013 worlds, the Americans had 14 medals and four golds.

“A great night,” said Felix, who took a break from her signature event, the 200, to focus on the 400 and won her ninth world title. “We’ve been struggling a little bit. It was a good time to step up to a challenge and see what I could do.”

Wearing white socks stretched nearly to her knees, Felix got off to a great start, pulling away in the middle of the one-lap race and then easily beating Shaunae Miller of the Bahamas in 49.26 seconds.

Most of his life, Taylor has started his leaps off his left foot in the triple jump. Because of injuries, he switched things around and now begins his jumps off his right foot. He’s gone over 59 feet, 3 ⁄4 inches starting with both feet, which is quite a feat in itself. His winning jump Thursday was 59-9, only 31⁄4 inches shy of a world record.

Bolt blew past Gatlin and everyone else in the 200 meters to win his 10th career gold medal at the world championships. His time of 19.55 seconds was a season best and he won by 0.19 seconds.

After three events of the decathlon, Olympic gold medalist Ashton Eaton of the U.S. has an 83point lead over Damian Warner of Canada.