Olympic champion meets his match

08.03.17: MILLIONS OF PEOPLE yesterday watched a former Olympic triple gold medallist cross the threshold in the same way he'd crossed the finishing line ­ in style.

In one of the great comebacks of the century, Orson Taylor wed Gaynor Hockney in a spectacular ceremony shown live to a viewing audience of 400m.

The rise and rise of OT began a decade ago at the 2008 Olympics with three gold medals. He retired from amateur athletics that year at the behest of Oprah Winfrey, to host a chat show targeted at ghetto youth. The programme, called How High Can You Go?, was soon outstripping Winfrey's own show in the ratings, which led to a rift between the two African American celebrities, and OT left to set up his own TV empire.

A series of stressful legal battles with Winfrey sent Taylor down the slippery slope of drug addiction. By the fifth anniversary of his triple gold, he was serving a three-year term in Chicago Camp Rehab, for buying crack in one of the city's drug-free zones.

It was at Camp Rehab that Taylor met the Most Reverend Rabb-Imam David, the self-proclaimed prophet and charismatic creator of the 3Rs (the three religions), the new urban 'multifaith' church. Under D