About Long Jump

Long jump
How it works
Competitors sprint along a runway and jump as far as possible into a sandpit from a wooden take-
off board. The distance travelled, from the edge of the board to the closest indentation in the sand
to it, is then measured.
A foul is committed – and the jump is not measured – if an athlete steps beyond the board.
Most championship competitions involve six jumps per competitor, although usually a number of
them, those with the shorter marks, are often eliminated after three jumps. If competitors are tied,
the athlete with the next best distance is declared the winner.
History
The origins of the long jump can be traced to the Olympics in Ancient Greece, when athletes
carried weights in each hand. These were swung forward on take-off and released in the middle of
the jump in a bid to increase momentum.
The long jump, as we know it today, has been part of the Olympics since the first Games in 1896.
The men’s event has seen some long-standing world records by US jumpers. Jesse Owens jumped
8.13m in 1935, a distance that was not exceeded until 1960, and Bob Beamon flew out to 8.90m in
the rarefied air of Mexico City at the 1968 Olympic Games. The latter mark stood until Mike
Powell beat it with a leap of 8.95m at the 1991 World Championships.
Did you know
The standing long jump was also on the Olympic programme from 1900 to 1912 and the US
jumper Raymond Ewry won four times, from 1900 to 1908, including at the 1906 Intercalated
Games.
Gold standard
USA has dominated the men’s event at the Olympic Games, with all but six winners since 1896.
US long jumper Dwight Phillips, the 2004 Olympic champion, has won four world titles.
On the women's side, another US athlete, Brittney Reese has been the top athlete in the event in
recent years, winning six global titles in a row between 2009 and 2013.
ICONS
Carl Lewis
The US superstar scooped four successive Olympic gold medals between 1984 and 1996, one of
only two athletes in any sport to win an individual event at four consecutive Games, and he won at
two World Championships. The world indoor record of 8.79m he set in 1984 still stands.
Heike Drechsler
The German won two Olympic, two world and four consecutive European titles during a top-class
career that lasted almost two decades. She also set two world records and finished her career with
a best of 7.48m, which makes her the third-best woman ever.
The long jump is a famous athletic sport in which the competitor attempts to cover the most
distance in one single leap. This article is about the basic rules of this famous sport.
Long Jump: Basics
Before we move onto all the technicalities and formal rules of long jump, here are some long jump
basics to get you started. As you all know, the long jump is a sport in which (as the name
suggests), the athlete who jumps the longest by legal means, wins. Basically, this is all that the
sport is about. The athlete begins running from his or her starting position and after attaining
sufficient velocity, jumps, landing in a sand pit, which is fitted with distance markers. There is a
foul line, in the run-up area, that the athlete has to be aware of; jumping from beyond this line
results in a 'foul jump'. Jumpers try to get as close to the foul line as legally possible before
initiating their jump. This entire process is governed by a certain set of rules. Let us see what they
are.
Rules and Regulations
No part of the athlete's foot should cross the front edge of the foul line. If, at the point of take-off,
any part of his foot (even the toe edge of his shoe) crosses the front edge of the foul line, then the
jump is termed to be illegal or a 'foul jump', and does not count.
Typically, in International track and field events, a long jumper has three attempts to register his or
her best legal jump. A foul jump accounts for an attempt, but the time isn't registered. Only the
farthest legal jump counts.
The distance, or the 'jump' is measured from the front edge of the foul line to the first landing
point of the athlete. To better understand this, consider an athlete taking off legally from the foul
line and landing on his feet 15 ft from the foul line. However, if, while landing, his hands touch
the ground before his legs and a foot behind his farthest landing point, he would be awarded a
jump of 14 ft, since the hands are nearer to the foul line than the feet and are the first point of
contact.
Similarly, even if the athlete takes off from behind the foul line, the starting point is still
considered to be the front edge of the foul line, rather than the athlete's actual point of take off.
Somersaults are not permitted during the jump.
The maximum allowed thickness for a long jumper's shoe sole is 13 mm.
Records made with the assistance of a tailwind of more than 2 m/s are not considered. However,
the time is registered in the ongoing competition, since all the athletes benefit from the same wind
conditions.
Note.- Although there are references to the 'front edge' of the foul line, please note that the foul
line is not a 'patch'. It is a single line. The 'front edge' references are simply for the sake of
convenience.
Did You Know?
The long jump is one of the world's oldest sporting events. It was one of the events at the Ancient
Olympic Games in Greece, and back then, it was the sole jumping event.
At the Olympics, the long jump is a part of the pentathlon, the heptathlon, and also the decathlon,
apart from the solo event itself.
The present men's world record in long jump is held by Mike Powell of the USA at 8.95 meters,
while the women's world record is held by Galina Chistyakova at 7.52 meters.
American track and field legend Carl Lewis made the longest jump of the year (athletics season) 7
times - a record.
World records in the long jump are notoriously hard to break. Mike Powell's world record, made
in 1991, has not been broken for more than 20 years. The previous world record, held by Bob
Beamon at 8.90 meters, had stood for 23 years before being broken by Powell. Similarly, Jesse
Owens' 1935 world record of 8.13 meters stood for 25 years before being broken by Ralph Boston
in 1960. Even the first long jump world record of 7.61 meters, made by Irishman Peter O'Connor
in 1901, took 22 years to be broken.
No long jump world records were made in the decades of 1910-20, 40-50, 50-60, 70-80, 80-90,
2000-10 and the relatively young 2010s. Barring the solitary records by O'Connor and Powell, no
records were made in the rest of 1900-10 and 1990-2000. This is a relatively rare occurrence in
track and field sports.

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Long jump

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