Are advances in athletic performance merely an artefact of technology?

The oddity of Beamon's record is that he never came close to it at any other time, his second best jump being 60cm behind it. Altitude helps but it doesn't add 60cm to your jump and no other record holder has such a large percentage disparity between their best and second best jumps.

People at the final claim it was windy and the officials were rounding down. Apparently there was also a hurdles race, which saw the wind readers changed before Beamon took his jump. If that's the case, this isn't a legit record. Measuring equipment isn't always perfect either, as we can see from the very windy Flojo 100m record.

As it is Beamon had 2m/s of wind behind him, which will have helped more with the thinner altitude air. I don't think the 2m/s and altitude is enough to give a 60cm discrepancy between his best 2 jumps.

As for his technique, I'm no expert but the greatest jumpers like Pedroso, Power and Lewis seem to have adopted the bicycle kick to propel themselves, Lewis PB went up significantly when he added it to his jump.

After Beamon's jump rain ruined the conditions for other jumpers. The Triple Jump Final though also saw 3 men breaking the world record multiple times, it was certainly good conditions for jumping. Although Beamon himself nearly went out in qualifying

Ever heard of Robert Emmiyan? He was a Soviet long jumper in the 80s who deployed only a hang technique and jumped 8.86cm at altitude but never managed to beat Lewis in competition.

 

About that quick recovery thing, I've heard that a lot of the time when an athlete knows he can't beat the test he pulls out with "injuries." Plus, he might compete less to avoid more regular testing, which would explain the behavior of certain athletes with long lay offs between competitions.

I've heard it said that football players and some other athletes might be using steroids in high school these days. With how competitive certain high school sports teams can be, I believe it.

 

Emmiyan was bad ass. Insane bounce off the board. Here's his 29 footer off what appears to be a very uneven dirt runway…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykekeh90IXg

I know this has nothing to do with boxing, but what-evs...

 

Interesting videos. I notice that one of the 15 year old kids records was good enough to win gold bronze in the 1980 olympics. Do you think that this means that a 15 year old world boxing champion might concievably be good enough to win a world championship (alphabet title) in 1980?

 

Uhh… I don't believe any 15 year old has ever jumped over 26-9 as did Podluzhniy. In fact, I think the record for that is 24 feet and change.

 

i was talking about the 100m video.

It seems (didnt study them) that the 100m times have improved much more rapidly than the long jump. Why do you think this is the case? I would have thought that the opposite would be true because of equipment advances.

 

I think drugs have helped more in the 100 meters than any other running event. It is essentially between 41-45 strides for world class competitors and is really a strength event. Despite the "speed is everything" argument in long jumping it is simply not true. Speed is quite a bit but ability at horizontal jumping is immense and less calculable. Transferring speed to distance in a jump is a weird alchemy.

 

I do not know if it was more windy than 2.0, but just rounding down & the what I have read is the 2-3" added by altitude would not nearly account for his distance. As shown above a great hang time jump can go very far. The single great jump suggests an inability to coordinate everything properly, & a special energy then, & a little benefit at least from the altitude & wind. Not that he cheated.

And again, show me anyone in the '60s who had & used drugs that increased strength but kept you skinny.

 

Amphetamines.

Found an interesting article about the history of sports doping. Some of these notes are quite interesting.

#1

#2

#3

http://sportsanddrugs.procon.org/view.timeline.php?timelineID=000017

 

Well...I am not aware of evidence they increase strength. They help jazz tired people, help in a long season or to keep going in training. They did this for years in baseball.

But we were talking about steroids, those add muscle & explosive power, as can HGH.

 

In individual speed and jumping events it is strength relative to individuals' weight. So, uppers would definitely help. In boxing, it is strength relative to opponent strength (+ skill and whatnot). Different arenas.

 

It's possible. The kid would have to be a prodigy and the champ would have to be incredibly weak/old/injured. Maybe one of those Thai kids. They start their careers around that age and get in a hundred bouts before their twenties. The guys at those 100 or 106 lb divisions don't have a lot of muscle, so maybe a 15 year old could compete and win a title there, especially if he's just passing through to becoming a middleweight or something. *I did some looking around and it's actually fairly common to have 16 year old Muay Thai champions, and articles are claiming they start boxing professionally as young as 8.

Although, boxing may be more difficult than track and field sports; so maybe the curve is a little higher. ESPN rated boxing as the most difficult sport out of sixty sports.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sportSkills

 

I just do not think they need uppers to stay lean, more athletes if anything have trouble keeping on muscle & water weight in a rigorous season or with heavy training. But uppers do provide artificial adrenal energy & mask tiredness.

 

Yea that's massive although I think he's a clearly part of the Soviet's weight lifting and drug programme rather than being the most graceful of jumpers. Lewis versus Powell in '91 has to be the highlight of long jumping history though, immense stuff.

 

Plus a long jumper doesn't want any excess weight that some anabolics provide either. Edwards despite his slight figure could clean 150kg (330lbs) and squat 235kg, which is insane for a man his size.