Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Beamonesque: Bob Beamon’s Incredible Olympic Record

Episode Date: July 31, 2020

In a single 6 second period in 1968, Bob Beamon completely rewrote the record books in track and field. His gold medal-winning long jump at the Mexico City Olympics not only set a world’s record, but it added a new word to the English dictionary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a single six-second period in 1968, Bob Beeman completely rewrote the record books in track and field. His gold medal-winning long jump in the Mexico City Olympics not only set a world's record, but it added a new word to the English dictionary. Find out how Bob Beeman changed not only sports history, but the English language on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? throughline is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR.

This episode is sponsored by Fluent in Three Months. Have you ever wanted to learn a foreign language and do so quickly? My friend Benny Lewis over at Fluent in Three Months might be able to help. Benny has spent over a decade language learning around the world. His techniques have helped tens of thousands of people learn the languages they want to learn quickly through both his online courses and his language hacking guides. I've personally met Benny in many places all over the globe and have seen his language skills and action. He doesn't just talk the talk, he walks the walk when it comes to language learning.

And I'm sure he'll be able to help you too. To sign up for his free Speak in a Week email course, just go to Fluenton3 Months.com. or click on the link in the show notes. Bob Beeman was a very good athlete, but I don't know if you could call him a great athlete. Take away the singular thing which happened to him in 1968, and he probably would be remembered as much as Ralph Boston. And if you don't know who Ralph Boston is,

that kind of proves my point. Going into the Olympics, Beeman was on a hot streak. He was the odds-on favorite to win the long jump, having won 22 of 23 meets that year. He also had personal bests of 8.33 meters, or 27 feet 4 inches. These distances I'm going to be discussing are really important to the story,

so I'll be giving them in both meters and feet. While he was having success on the track, Beeman was having issues of his personal life. He had recently lost his scholarship to the University of Texas El Paso when he and some other athletes boycotted a track meet at BYU because of the racial policies, and he also wasn't getting along with his wife. Once the Olympic competition had started,

he had difficulties in the preliminaries. Each competitor was given three jumps, and the longest jump of the three would count towards making the finals. Beeman had fouled on his first two jumps. On its third and final attempt, Beeman landed his foot well before the foul line, just to be safe, and wound it up with a jump of 8.19 meters or 26 feet and 10.4 inches. The jump put him in second place going into the finals, and it was his all-time personal best jump as well. The World and Olympic Records at the time were both held by the after the final. aforementioned Ralph Boston. The world record was 8.35 meters or 27 feet and 7.4 inches.

The Olympic record was 8.12 meters or 26 feet 7.7 inches. So both Beeman and Boston had surpassed the Olympic record in the prelims, so either man setting a world record in the finals was very possible. It is here where the story doesn't follow the plot you'd expect from a movie. There was no dramatic last jump. This was not a close competition. In the finals, all 16 competitors were given the opportunity at six jumps. The best jump is all that mattered. The jump for which this entire episode is based took place on Beeman's very first jump in the finals.

Beeman reached an incredibly high speed and jumped getting an incredible amount of height. He knew immediately it was a good jump. He thought it might have been good enough for the world's record. He figured he might have gotten 8.4 meters, or 27.5 feet. As soon as he landed, there was a problem. The 1968 Olympics was the first Olympics to use an electrical sensor to measure jumps.

Beeman had landed past the electrical measuring device. They didn't think anyone could possibly jump that far. Officials took 20 minutes to measure the jump because they had to get a tape measure to measure it manually. When they announced the distance, Beeman at first didn't know what had happened because he was used to feet and inches, not meters. The announced length of the jump was 8.9 meters. His teammate Ralph Boston told him this distance in a way he could understand. 29 feet, 2.5 inches. Bob Beeman had demolished the world record.

When he was given the news, his body collapsed due to being put in a state of cataplexy. His emotions were so great, his legs literally gave out from under him. It is hard to express just how great this jump was. Most world records in track and field are usually set by the smallest of margins. The improvement in time or distance is usually only a fraction of a percentage greater than the previous world record. To break a record by more than 1% is extremely rare. Usain Bolt's dramatic world record in the 100 meters of 9.5a seconds only improved the world record by 1.1%. In the history of the long jump, world records were advanced on average by only 5 centimeters.

Bob Beeman broke the world's record by 3.000. 55 centimeters, or by almost two feet. It was a full 6.59% improvement in the world record, the greatest single increase in a world record in the entire history of track and field across all events. The average world record improvement today is one-half of one-tenth of 1%. Not only was Beeman the first person in history to jump 27 and a half feet, he was also the first person to jump 28 feet and 29 feet, and he did it all in a single jump. The jump itself was perfect. From a technical point of view, his execution was flawless. It can and has been used to teach long jump technique. His vertical height was also incredible. It's estimated he got over six feet or

two meters in the air. The jump also had conditions going in its favor. The maximum tailwind allowed for a record is two meters per second, and Beeman's tailwind was exactly two. meters per second. Any less, and he wouldn't have jumped as far, any more, and the record wouldn't have counted. Mexico City is also very high altitude, which means slightly less air resistance, which allows you to jump slightly farther. Moreover, soon after the jump was measured and announced, it started to rain. All of the stars were in alignment for this one jump. His competitors immediately heaped him with praise. Defending Olympic champion Lynn Davies of Great Britain told Beeman, you have destroyed this event.

Former Soviet world record holder, Igor Toro Ornison, said, compared to this jump, we are all children. Beeman attempted a second jump in the finals, but came nowhere close to his first jump. In fact, at no point in his career would he ever come close to jumping this far again. Not only would he never jump 29 feet again, but he would also never jump 28 feet or even 27 feet. The legacy of that single jump has lived on for over 50 years. Sports Illustrated said it was one of the five greatest athletic achievement performances of the 20th century. It still stands as the Olympic record in the long jump, and it is by far the oldest standing Olympic record, with the next closest having been set in 1988.

Beeman's record was broken by Mike Powell in 1991 at the Tokyo World Championships. He jumped 8.95 meters, or 29 feet 4 and a quarter inches. That record was set on an unusually fast track, which would no longer be allowed under current Internet. national rules and wind conditions might have been suspect. The single jump in 1991 is the only legal jump longer than Bob Beeman's in 52 years. Most significantly, that jump entered the word Beemanesque into our vocabulary. The definition is a feat so dramatically superior to previous feats that it overwhelms the imagination. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Makala. Special thanks to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Please remember to leave a

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