A plan to eliminate faulty jumps from the long jump has been criticized as an “April Fool’s joke” by four-time Olympic champion Carl Lewis.
World Athletics CEO Jon Ridgeon confirmed that rule changes will be trialled this year and said he believes the discipline needs to get rid of the large number of recorded foul jumps to make them more attractive to the public.
“At the World Championships in Budapest last summer, a third of all jumps were no-jumps, with athletes stepping over the front of the starting board,” Ridgeon said on the Anything But Footy podcast. “That doesn’t work, it’s a waste of time. So, for example, we test a take-off zone instead of a take-off board, so we measure from where the athlete takes off to where he lands in the pit.
“That means every jump counts, it adds to the danger of the competition, the drama of the competition.”
The aim is to test the idea with top athletes this year, but Lewis, who won gold in the long jump at four consecutive Olympic Games and whose 8.87 meters in 1991 is third on the all-time world list, delivered a scathing assessment of the to suggest.
“You have to wait until April Fool’s Day for April Fool’s Day jokes,” Lewis said on social media platform athletics. That would simply eliminate the most difficult skill from the event. Just make the basket bigger for free throws because so many people miss them.â€
World Athletics also wants to ensure that the new rules do not cause delays. “We’re working on ways to get instant results so you don’t have to wait 20 or 30 seconds for the result to appear,” Ridgeon added.