TOKYO, Japan — Christopher Taylor’s comeback to the world stage is not just another appearance at a championships for the now- 25-year-old, it’s a revival story for one of the island’s most promising talents.

For his coach, Gregory Little, who has built a reputation for breathing life back into careers, this is a welcomed and familiar kind of challenge.

“People always say that I am the coach who resurrect people’s careers so I am used to this sort of challenge. Over the years we have done things like this, taking athletes out of retirement basically and getting them back closer to the top, so with Chris I feel really good about his growth,” Little told the Jamaica Observer.

Taylor, a 400m finalist at the 2020 Olympic Games, missed a significant portion of time on the track after serving an anti-doping violation suspension and will contest the 200m at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan. For his coach, this event does not represent a destination, but rather an important step on his journey back to his best.

“I expect him to improve at the World Championships throughout the rounds and hopefully with that improvement he can make it through and get into the final. In truth it has not a bad season for him knowing that he’s coming from the 400m and we are using the 200m to try and get him back into the sport and he performed pretty well. We have some things to clean up technically, but I believe he will get it right at the championships,” Little said.

Little shared that Taylor will continue running both the 200m and 400m next season.

Getting him to this point has been a delicate balance of mental and physical preparation.

“Christopher Taylor is not a hard person to work with but you know he had been out of the sport for a little bit so we have to keep motivating him and pushing him and convincing him that he can return to being the athlete that we know him to be,” Little said.

“He is a naturally hard-working athlete so it was easy to get him back into shape but one of the problems we had was because he was out of it so long and we had less competition heading into Trials due to when his suspension ended and so we had to use the Trials to run him into shape and so forth, so he is coming in well and hopefully next year should be a better season for him,” he added.

As part of his preparation for Tokyo, Taylor won a silver medal at the NACAC Championships in the Bahamas last month, clocking 20.32 seconds — a time that won’t scare too many of his opponents.

However, Little expects him to go considerably faster in Tokyo.

“The preparation so far has gone fairly well. Things look on target based on where we were at the NACAC Championships and what they are doing now,” said Little, who also has two other athletes from his Titans Track Club in Tokyo — 400m hurdlers Malik James-King and Assinie Wilson.

LITTLE…we have some things to clean up technically, but I believe he will get it right at the championships

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