Repost from
@ticketsandslabs
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At 3.45pm on 18 October 1968 in Mexico City’s Estadio Olímpico Universitario, Bob Beamon defied gravity to smash the World Record by an extraordinary distance, and win Olympic Gold in the process. PSA 4 stub, POP 3, one higher. Auto grade 10.
@bobbeamon68 arrived at the Olympics having enjoyed an extraordinary season, winning 22 of 23 meets and setting a world’s best of 8.39 metres (27ft 6½in) that was ineligible for the record books because of excessive wind assistance.
Beamon was the favourite for gold but he knew three other jumpers were determined to exploit their greater Olympic experience on finals day. The field included the two previous gold-medal winners, Beamon’s mentor and compatriot Ralph Boston, who had become the champion eight years previously in Rome, and Wales’s Lynn “the Leap” Davies who won in Tokyo in 1964. The third danger man was the USSR’s Igor Ter-Ovanesyan, twice a bronze medal winner and the joint holder with Boston of the world record which stood at 8.35 metres (27ft 4¾in).
The record had advanced by only 22 centimetres (8½in) over the past 33 years since Jesse Owens had registered an “astonishing” best in 1935, but there was some anticipation before the Games began that Beamon’s explosive pace on the runway made him the sole man with the talent to go beyond the “magical” 28ft mark.
He thought he had maybe set a new record of 27ft 10in and cursed himself for grounding his bottom and shaving at least a foot off his mark. Davies and Boston thought that he had hit 28ft but no one knew for certain because the rail the optical measuring device introduced for the Mexico Games slid along was too short for the purpose. Finally the official sent for a tape measure and more than 20 minutes after he had jumped, 8.90m (29 ft 2 ⅜ in) flashed up on the electronic scoreboard. 55cm beyond the previous record.
Sixty odd years later it remains the Olympic record and the achievement is cherished in the memories of those who witnessed it as “the leap of the century”.
#leapofthecentury #bobbeamon #psa #psacard #ticket
