Olympics icon slams proposed rule change as an ‘April Fool’s joke’ as athletics bosses trial major new format
ATHLETICS ICON Carl Lewis has slammed proposals to change the long jump event, saying: Is it April Fool’s Day already?
SunSport revealed on Monday that World Athletics bosses are trialling a new format where long jumpers use a ‘take-off zone’ rather than a take-off board.
The governing body says that data collected during the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest showed that a THIRD of all attempts were recorded as no-jumps.
The rule experiment will take place throughout this year in lower-level competitions and jumps will be measured from the front of the take-off foot within that zone.
It will not be part of the Paris 2024 Olympics programme – the competition will remain the same.
Should it prove successful, if it has the full backing of the top stars, then it could be implemented from 2026 onwards.
Lewis – winner of four successive Olympic long jump titles between 1984 and 1996 – is not a fan of the concept.
The American, 62, said: “You’re supposed to wait until April 1st for April Fool’s jokes.
“Actually, it wouldn’t change the distances that much. You would just see more bad jumps measured.”
Lewis’s displeasure is also matched by Britain’s leading female long jumper, Jazmin Sawyers, who reckons there are more cons than pros with the idea.
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The reigning European indoor long champion believes the potential positives are that every jump would count, there could be bigger jumps and it may prevent slipping on the board.
Yet from her perspective, the negatives are the difficulties to implement it at grassroots level – given the computer technology involved – and the chance it may encourage some to cheat.
Sawyers also feels there will be less drama, no more super-imposed measurements on TV, the crowd won’t be able to tell if it is a big jump and hitting the take-off board remains “an essential element of the skill”.
She said: “I think there are a lot of reasons not to do it.
“I appreciate they’re trying to do something. But this how I view it. I don’t think this particular innovation is a good idea.
“I’d also just like to say: Can we stop messing with the long jump? Can we just leave it alone?
“Maybe just try it on some other event. Try something else. I don’t think this is what long jump needs. The idea of speeding up the measuring – that’s great.
“At the British championship last weekend, it was taking over a minute sometimes to get each result and it was really slowing down the pace of the competition.
“It made it a bit more boring. When it could have been a bit more exciting.
“The idea of speeding up the measurement is great. I don’t think you will be able to do that if you bring in this take-off zone.”
The Stoke leaper, whose personal best is seven metres, added: “We removing an essential element of the skill of long jumping. Part of the skill is that you have to hit the board.
“If you remove that, it changes the event completely. I don’t think you can then compare the old records to the new records. It just becomes a different event when part of the skill isn’t hitting the board.
“So much of the drama of the event is whether somebody will hit the board or not. It’s whether they were this close.
“Was it a foul? Was it not a foul? That drama is removed and really we’re doing something different.
“Yes, we’re still just jumping into sand. But the idea that we are trying to hit a certain mark is part of the skill.
“If runners didn’t have to go at the gun and they could go whenever they felt like, and we just took the fastest time, it’d be just a time trial.
“It would be a different event. I think this will make it a different event.
“I don’t think there is anything wrong with the long jump. I think having the board is part of the drama.”