Men's
Long Jump
World Record
8.95m
Mike Powell
August 30th 1991
World Championships
Tokyo, Japan
The omens were not good for America’s Mike Powell: conditions were poor — high humidity, swirling wind — and he was up against Carl Lewis, who was unbeaten in 81 long jump competitions and who had broken the 100m world record just days before. But on a remarkable night in Tokyo, Powell finally beat his nemesis.
Lewis began with 8.68m, then added a wind-assisted 8.83m, just 7cm short of Bob Beamon’s legendary 23-year-old world record — which Powell thought he’d beaten with his fourth jump... But he’d overstepped the board by the tip of his shoe. Then Lewis did beat it, by 1cm, only to be denied the record because of an illegal tailwind.
It was now that Powell pulled out the leap of his life: 8.95m flashed up on the board and Beamon’s record was no more. Lewis had one more jump, however, and Powell had to count off the minutes before his rival made that final mark: 8.84m.
Women's
Long Jump
World Record
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7.52m
Galina Chistyakova
June 11th 1988
Athletics Meeting
Leningrad (now St Petersburg), Russia
East Germany’s Heike Drechsler and American Jackie Joyner-Kersee were the world leaders in 1988, having both registered 7.45m. But Chistyakova had other ideas.
At a June meet in Leningrad the Soviet athlete equalled her rivals — and then sailed out to 7.52m to take sole possession of the world record.
All three women subsequently did battle at the Seoul Olympics. Both Chistyakova and Drechsler led — Chistyakova on the first jump, Dreschler on the fourth — but it was Joyner-Kersee who took gold, if not the world record, with a leap of 7.40m.