BEIJING  Angelo Taylor is the Olympic 400-meter hurdles champion again — eight years after his first gold in Sydney, four years after injuries kept him from the final in Athens, three years after legal problems and a year after he worked as an apprentice electrician.

"To go through what I did and be back on top again, I'm so blessed," Taylor said. "I feel like I'm on top of the world."

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Taylor, 29, led a U.S. sweep, finishing in a personal-best 47.25, followed by 2007 world champion Kerron Clement (47.98) and 2005 world champion Bershawn Jackson (48.06).

"The USA (track team) hasn't really had a great showing so far," Taylor said. "We wanted to uplift the track team to go out there and bring home the sweep."

The sweep was the fifth in event history for the USA and first since 1960. Taylor joins Edwin Moses, the Olympic champion in 1976 and 1984, as the only man to win the event eight years apart. Taylor, Moses and Glenn Davis, the winner in 1956 and 1960, are the event's only two-time champs.

It hasn't all been smooth for Taylor.

In 2004, he failed to make the Olympic final, hampered by what was discovered to be stress fractures in both shins on the eve of competition. He ran anyway and chose rest and recovery rather than surgery to have steel rods implanted.

In 2006, he pleaded guilty to charges of contributing to the delinquency of underage girls in two incidents, in 2004 and 2005, receiving three years' probation.

"To see my son's life highlighted, exploited in a negative way around the world, that was the low point," said his mother, Subrena Glenn-Everett. "But I vowed then we'd get through it because we're strong believers."

Taylor was out of the sport in 2005 and virtually out of it in 2006 before reviving his career when he started working with Innocent Egbunike, a world championships medalist in the 400 who had settled in Atlanta. For a time, Taylor worked an electrician's job from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. and then would go to practice.

The 2007 turnaround was highlighted by winning the U.S. title in the 400 and taking third in the world championships, recording a personal-best 44.05.

"I knew my speed was there," said Taylor, who scored a shoe contract that enabled him to quit the electrician's job. "I knew if I could get the rhythm down and take it over the hurdles, I'd have a great chance of winning."

When Taylor won in Sydney, he was in Lane 1, the inside lane that makes running the turns most difficult, and ran 47.50, his winning margin of .03 of a second the narrowest in event history.

Monday, he ran faster than ever. "There's more where that came from," said Egbunike, mentioning Kevin Young's world record of 46.78. "He's capable of the world record."