Today seems to be the day for sharing Olympic memories--the good ones. So here goes.
Nothing in my mind will ever eclipse the result, the reaction and the effort itself of Bob Beamon's world-record SHATTERING long jump at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. It was the rarest of instances when everything in the universe simultaneously conspired to produce a result no one considered to be even remotely possible. He broke that damn record by almost two f'g feet.
I'd just gotten home from school and was watching TV alone. For some reason the sound was off. So I saw the jump, sat through the delay and then watched Beamon collapse, hold his head, jump around, wave his arms. I assumed that he must have had an incredible jump wiped out by a scratch. Only minutes later did I learn the real reason for his incredible reaction.
The jump itself is a marvel. It's shown in slo-mo toward the end of the video. For the life of me, when his flight is maybe 2/3s done and he's on his way down, I swear he gets another lift and push. It still just absolutely blows me away.
Nothing in my mind will ever eclipse the result, the reaction and the effort itself of Bob Beamon's world-record SHATTERING long jump at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. It was the rarest of instances when everything in the universe simultaneously conspired to produce a result no one considered to be even remotely possible. He broke that damn record by almost two f'g feet.
I'd just gotten home from school and was watching TV alone. For some reason the sound was off. So I saw the jump, sat through the delay and then watched Beamon collapse, hold his head, jump around, wave his arms. I assumed that he must have had an incredible jump wiped out by a scratch. Only minutes later did I learn the real reason for his incredible reaction.
The jump itself is a marvel. It's shown in slo-mo toward the end of the video. For the life of me, when his flight is maybe 2/3s done and he's on his way down, I swear he gets another lift and push. It still just absolutely blows me away.
