Athletics at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's triple jump

This was the 28th appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics. Georgia, Guyana, and Mauritius each made their first appearance in the event. The United States competed for the 27th time, having missed only the boycotted 1980 Games.

The top entrant was Christian Taylor of the United States, who was the defending 2012 Olympic champion and the 2015 World Champion. The second best athlete of all-time, he held the season's top mark at 17.78 m. He had been beaten by Will Claye at the American Olympic Trials, who was second on the world rankings and runner-up at the previous Olympics. Cuban Pedro Pablo Pichardo (the 2015 world silver medallist and fourth best of all-time) entered but had not performed highly that year. The 2016 World Indoor Champion Dong Bin started as the fourth best on the world lists. India's Renjith Maheswary and American Chris Benard filled out the world's top five of 2016. The event had enjoyed a resurgence globally and an unusually large starting field of 48 athletes had made the qualifying grade.[3][4]

The qualifying round saw perhaps the most significant non-event as #4 all time Pedro Pablo Pichardo scratched. European champion and world indoor silver medalist Max Heß was also unable to qualify.

The final was barely dramatic. On the third jump of the competition, Dong Bin jumped his personal best of 17.58 m (just 1 cm less than the Asian continental record) to take the lead. Four jumpers later, Christian Taylor jumped 17.86 m (58 ft 7 in) which proved to be the gold medal winning jump. Three jumps after Taylor, Will Claye jumped a personal best 17.76 m to take over silver medal position. The 1 cm improvement moved him into the #23 position of all time. From a medal perspective, the next five rounds were unnecessary, none of the medalists improved and no other athlete seriously challenged their position. Taylor jumped 17.77m two times during those subsequent rounds, either of those jumps would have still edged Claye for the win. Taylor and Claye repeated their medals from 2012.

In the medal ceremony, the medals were presented by Austin Sealy, Barbados, IOC member, and the gifts were presented by Alberto Juantorena, Vice President of the IAAF.

A National Olympic Committee (NOC) could enter up to 3 qualified athletes in the men's triple jump event if all athletes meet the entry standard during the qualifying period. (The limit of 3 has been in place since the 1930 Olympic Congress.) The qualifying standard was 16.85 metres. The qualifying period was from 1 May 2015 to 11 July 2016. The qualifying distance standards could be obtained in various meets during the given period that have the approval of the IAAF. Only outdoor meets were accepted. NOCs could also use their universality place—each NOC could enter one male athlete regardless of time if they had no male athletes meeting the entry standard for an athletics event—in the triple jump.[5][6]

The competition consisted of two rounds, qualification and final. In qualification, each athlete jumped three times (stopping early if they made the qualifying distance of 16.95 metres). At least the top twelve athletes moved on to the final; if more than twelve reached the qualifying distance, all who did so advanced. Distances were reset for the final round. Finalists jumped three times, after which the eight best jumped three more times (with the best distance of the six jumps counted).[7]

Prior to the competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

World record	Jonathan Edwards (GBR)	18.29	Gothenburg, Sweden	7 August 1995
Olympic record	Kenny Harrison (USA)	18.09	Atlanta, United States	27 August 1996

2016 World leading

Christian Taylor (USA)

17.78

London, United Kingdom

22 July 2016

The following record was established during the competition:

Date	Event	Nation	Athlete	Distance	Record
16 August	Final	United States	Christian Taylor	17.86	2016 World Leading

The following national record was established during the competition:

Nation	Athlete	Round	Distance	Notes
Colombia	Jhon Murillo (COL)	Final	17.09

All times are Brasilia Time (UTC-3)