{"id":2767,"date":"2021-08-30T18:50:46","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T17:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/?p=2767"},"modified":"2021-09-03T11:39:53","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T10:39:53","slug":"a-giant-leap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/2021\/08\/30\/a-giant-leap\/","title":{"rendered":"A Giant Leap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (August 30<sup>th<\/sup> 2021)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Chasing the Record<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thirty years ago today US long jumper, Mike Powell, leapt into the history books. His rival Carl Lewis had been inching closer to Bob Beamon\u2019s record of 8.90 which had been set at altitude in M\u00e9xico City\u2019s Olympic Games in October 1968. For some Beamon\u2019s mark was thought to be unbreakable. Defending Olympic champion Lyn Davies told Beamon he had destroyed the event \u2013 he had extended the world record by 55 centimetres \u2013 an extraordinary progression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Carl Lewis\u2019 longest registered jump was 8.79 and not at altitude in June 1983. Beamon\u2019s leap was incredible. His teammate Ralph Boston broke the great Jesse Owens world record. Owens set the record of 8.13m in 1935. He was the first person to break the 8 metres barrier. Owens\u2019 record lasted just over a quarter of century. Beamon\u2019s iconic leap lasted just under 23 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Owens record was broken by Beamon\u2019s teammate Ralph Boston at 8.21 \u2013 he set five world records, improving the mark to 8.35m a distance he shared with the Ukrainian Igor Ter-Ovanesyan before Beamon tore up the record books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Giant Leap<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On August 30<sup>th<\/sup> 1991 history was made at the World Championships in Tokyo. Carl Lewis leapt further than Beamon\u2019s world record by a centimetre, but the leap was wind-assisted, so Beamon\u2019s record remained, but not for much longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Powell\u2019s 5<sup>th<\/sup> round effort took Beamon\u2019s record and the gold medal. Lewis\u2019 best effort that was not wind-assisted was 8.87, he had another measured at 8.84. He never held the long jump world record. Powell\u2019s best ever jump of 8.99m was wind-assisted and came at altitude too in Italy in 1992.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Africa\u2019s only representative in that final was Nigeria\u2019s George Ogbeide. He finished last of the 13 qualifiers 1.17m behind Powell. Having set an African record of 8.65m in the South African championship in 2017, Luvo Manyonga won that year\u2019s World Championship too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Test of Time<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Powel\u2019s world record has stood the test of time. Only three long jumpers have held the record for over 20 years in the twentieth century: Owens Beamon and Powell, although an honourable mention is deserved for Ireland\u2019s Peter O\u2019Connor whose record of 7.61m lasted just under a fortnight shy of 20 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Owens\u2019 record lasted 25 years, two months and 18 days. Beamon\u2019s stood for 22 years, ten months and 12 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michael Powell is the only long jumper to hold the world record for 30 years and counting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Samuel Matete on Mike Powell&#039;s World Record and Long Jump\" width=\"1220\" height=\"686\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6UfMm0TB4w8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (August 30th 2021) Chasing the Record Thirty years ago today US long jumper, Mike Powell, leapt into the history books.<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2767"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2782,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767\/revisions\/2782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}