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October 18, 1968, Mexico City — 50 years ago today (Thursday)
As an event that dates back to the original (BCE) Greek Olympics, is simple in concept and uses no special equipment, the long jump is open to just about anyone from any background, a case which tends
to cause its records to move in very small increments. The average increase in world record performances over the first six decades of the 20th century was between two and three inches at a time, and
even that was somewhat inflated by Jesse Owens putting a full six inches on the mark in the mid-1930s. In the 33 years following Owens just eight additional inches had been tacked on to the record.
American Ralph Boston was the world record holder heading into the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City as he had been for much of the ‘60s although his teammate, the younger up-and-coming New York
City native Bob Beamon, was considered the favorite going into the games based on that year’s track season.
In the very first of his allotted six attempts at the Mexico City games, the long, lean Beamon (listed at 6’ 3†- 150) had a clean take-off (no foot foul), a clean landing (no falling backward), and in between
just seemed to float over the landing pit. He must have known it was a good jump but there was a delay in reporting the distance because he had landed just outside the working range for the newly-installed
optical measuring device causing officials to have to revert to measuring the result by hand.
[fimg=300]https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/styles/image-article_inline_full/public/blogs/124283/2013/10/135754-135641.jpg?itok=vnxKtzBV[/fimg]
Then, for Beamon, there was a second delay due to the fact that U.S. track meets at that time were still mostly run in English units leaving American athletes often unfamiliar with metric measurements.
So when the old hand-operated signs displayed the distance of Beamon’s jump as ‘8.9 meters’ he didn’t immediately know what that meant. Only after being told that 8.9 meters converted to 29 feet-2-1/2
inches did he collapse on the track in shock from the realization that, in an event known for incremental progress, his opening jump had broken the world record by nearly two feet (21-3/4 inches). “You
have destroyed this event†British defending Olympic Champion Lynn Davies told him.
[fimg=300]http://www.myblackhistory.net/beamon2.jpg[/fimg]
Now he did have some advantages. The games of Mexico City were at the highest altitude ever (some 35% higher than Denver) meaning thinner air, and indeed a number of track records were set at
those games. Also the tail wind that followed him down the runway was just under the maximum allowable strength to have the record officially recognized. But of course those same conditions
existed for everyone else that day and yet the silver medal jump wound up well short of the previous world record mark and a full 28 inches short of Beamon’s gold.
In that era where quasi-amateurism still reigned and one couldn’t really make a living at track, careers were shorter and, besides, where else was Beamon going to go with it after this? He took only one
of his five remaining allotted jumps that day (a pedestrian 26’ 5â€) because, really, what was the point? In his short post-Olympics career he was never again to jump 29 feet, nor top 28 feet, or even 27
feet (his pre-Olympic best was 27-4, an inch or so under the then-current world record). That lone jump remains one of the all-time freakish athletic feats and put the word ‘Beamonesque’ into the sports
lexicon to describe such an outsized and unexplainable accomplishment.
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Bob Beamon is currently a 72 year-old graphic artist living in Florida. In the half century since Mexico City his mark has been topped exactly once, by 2 inches.
The winning jump at the most recent Olympics (Rio - 2016) was 27’ 5-3/4“, almost exactly where the world record stood 50 years plus one day ago.
Some day, just for kicks, you should measure out 29 and change feet in your yard or on your driveway or sidewalk just to get an idea of what it looks like, and then imagine trying to get from the mark
on the one end to the mark on the other without touching any of the ground in between … and without borrowing Elroy Jetson’s jet-pack.
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