Main Rules of Long Jumping Explained for Beginners

Long jumping is a technical athletic discipline; it is a kind of horizontal jumps. The given kind of sport develops such skills and qualities as speed and leaping abilities. This track-and-field variation was an obligatory part of the ancient Olympic Games. As for its modern state of affairs, it is an obligatory Olympic discipline both for men and women.

General Information

Athletes take a run to perform a single jump. Male athletes manage to reach a speed of about 9.5 m/hour before performing a jump. With this, an angle of 20-22 degrees is said to be ideal for athletes’ mass centers to start. In addition, the height of mass centers should be a bit different; it is 50-70 cm higher in comparison with its level during regular walking. As a rule, athletes tend to show the highest speed making the last three-four steps before performing a jump.

Every jump consists of four stages:

• run;
• starting;
• flying;
• landing.

There are different styles of performing a jump, and they mainly refer to a flying stage. To be more exact, one can distinguish the following jumping variations:

1. The Stride Jump. It is the simplest way of long jumping; it is familiar for many from school gym classes. Developed in the 19th century, this style makes athletes move their jumping legs close to the switch ones moving their shoulder slightly backward. Although it is an elementary way of performing jumps, it is still widely used even in the 21st century.
2. The Hang Style. It is a more complicated variant that requires more efforts and coordinating skills. In this case, athletes should bend their waists and make a so-called pause in the air before landing. This variant was presented to the public in 1920 by a Finnish athlete. Nowadays, however, it is the most popular way of performing long jumps among women.
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3. The Hitch-Kick. It is the most complicated variant of performing long jumps. An athlete should have perfect speed and power to make such a jump. Here, athletes seem to keep running even after they enter a flying stage. As a result, they make 1.5, 2.5 or 3.5 imaginary steps in the air. Nowadays, it is the most common long jumping variation among professional male athletes.

Referees

Every official long jumping competition should be served by a judging panel consisting of the chief referee, two assistants, and up to five measuring judges. Each of these officials performs a particular scope of functions. For example, the chief referee is responsible for watching the general rules and checking athletes’ equipment. The main task of the measuring judges is to mark the place of athlete’s landing. In addition, they watch how whether athletes follow the rules of performing jumps. As for the assistants, they control the progress of competitions and tell participants where and when to come.

History

As has been mentioned, long jumping was a part of the ancient Olympic Games. According to the existing evidence, athletes applied a much different jumping style. They perform jumps with special supplements (something similar to dumb-bells) in their hands. It was believed that these supplements allowed to jump for longer distances. To tell the truth, it was efficient because data proved that some athletes managed to reach distances of 15 meters. Some researchers, however, believe that it refers to step and jumps.

Long jumping became an extremely popular discipline in the 19th century, which synchronized with an increasing interest paid to athletics. 1898 saw as M. Prinstein set a world record; a distance was 7.23 meters. As for the first Olympic Games, they witness standing jumping events, but those competitions lost their popularity soon. This sporting discipline is said to be the most conservative one. Thus, an 8-meter line was overcome by J. Owens only in 1935. To tell the truth, this record is still current even today.

Since a fair wind can significantly increase a jumping distance, the international governing body does not consider the results shown with a fair wind of 2 meters per second. Thus, the best jump ever was performed by M. Powell in 1992. The distance was 8.99 meters, but the result was not considered a world record because the jump was accompanied by a fair wind of 4 m/s.