Records
Jesse Owens set a long jump world record 8.13 m (26 ft 8 in) that was not broken for 25 years, until 1960 by Ralph Boston. In 1968, Bob Beamon jumped 8.90 m (29 ft 2 1⁄2 in) at the 1968 Summer Olympics at an altitude of 7,349 feet (2,240 m), a jump not exceeded for a further 23 years, in 1991. On August 30 of that year, Mike Powell of the United States, in a well-known show down against Carl Lewis, leapt 8.95 m (29 ft 4 1⁄2 in) at the World Championships in Tokyo, setting the current men's world record which has now stood for over 20 years.
Some jumps over 8.95 m (29 ft 4 1⁄2 in) have been officially recorded. 8.99 m (29 ft 6 in) was recorded by Mike Powell himself (wind-aided +4.4) set at high altitude in Sestriere, Italy in 1992. A potential world record of 8.96 m (29 ft 5 in) was recorded by Iván Pedroso, with a "legal" wind reading also at Sestriere, but the jump was not validated because videotape revealed someone was standing in front of the wind gauge, invalidating the reading (and costing Pedroso a Ferrari valued at $130,000--the prize for breaking the record at that meet). Lewis himself jumped 8.91m moments before Powell's record-breaking jump with the wind exceeding the maximum allowed; this jump remains the longest ever to not win Olympic or World Championship gold medal, or any competition in general.
The current world record for women is held by Galina Chistyakova of the former Soviet Union who leapt 7.52 m (24 ft 8 in) in Leningrad on June 11, 1988, a mark that has stood for 24 years.
Read more about this topic: Long Jump
Famous quotes containing the word records:
“The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,
And even old men’s eyes grew dim, this hand alone,
Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping-place
Babbling of fallen majesty, records what’s gone.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“It’s always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a hell it is. And it’s always the war widows who lead the Memorial Day parades.”
—Paddy Chayefsky (1923–1981)