Mike Powell bests Carl Lewis, claims world record in long jump in 1991.
Powell soars into history, stuns Lewis in long jump
This story appeared in the Houston Chronicle on Aug. 31, 1991. The words and headlines are reprinted as they ran then.
TOKYO — In the end, it was just the way Mike Powell envisioned it.
“I wanted a perfect situation, a perfect track, a big meet, being behind and me up as the very last jumper,” he said.
“Well, I didn’t jump last, but I guess everything else was perfect.”
Or as close to flawless as one might ask for as Powell broke the oldest and most famous record in the history of his sport Friday night by leaping 29-4½ to beat Carl Lewis and win the gold medal in the long jump at the World Track and Field Championships.
Bob Beamon’s record of 29-2½ had stood for nearly 23 years — since Oct. 18, 1968 — but Powell finally brought it down.
And in the process, he brought down Lewis, the two-time defending world champ, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and the man every expert figured would be the man to finally crack the mark.
It was Lewis’ first loss in the long jump in 66 meets, dating to Feb. 27, 1981, and it came in what was, indisputably, the greatest duel in the history of the meet.
Together on the night, Powell and Lewis accounted for five of the seven longest jumps in history. Lewis had three jumps of 29 feet or better and another of 28-11¾. His shortest jump was 28-5¾.
Larry Myricks jumped 27-7¾ to complete an American medals sweep. But Powell got off the one that counted. “I really hate to say, ‘In your face, Carl,’ ” said Powell. “But, well, in your face.
“I don’t think very many people took me seriously all year when I’ve been telling them that I was going to do this.
“This is exactly the way I planned it. I said I was going to come to the World Championships, beat Carl and set the world record. And it all happened. “I’m living in a fantasy right now.” Powell’s flight of fantasy came at 5:08 a.m., Houston time, on a hot, humid evening in Tokyo’s National Stadium. It came on a fast track. But the conditions and the fact that his jump was at sea level — to the thin air of Mexico City at 7,300 feet — make Powell’s mark beyond reproach.
What made the leap even more dramatic was that it followed by just eight minutes a wind-aided jump by Lewis of 29-2¾, which, though not legal for world-record consideration, was the longest jump in history under any conditions.
“When Carl put up that mark of 8.91 (meters), I didn’t let myself start to worry about having to jump a new world record to win,” Powell said. “I just looked at it like Carl was in first place and I had to go get him.”
Powell did so with a jump that was a thing of beauty. It was his fourth jump of the night and it came just as the wind died down to a very calm 0.3 meters per second, making it a legal record.
He flashed down the runway, came up about an inch from the end of the takeoff board and lifted off like a rocket into the night.
When Beamon set his record back in 1968, he stayed kneeling in the pit for a long time, then collapsed on the track. Startled eyes inside a disbelieving head that was held in trembling hands portrayed Beamon’s shock at the magnitude of what he’d accomplished.
But Powell has been confident all along he was up to the task, so after sliding almost out of the end of the pit he bounced up and stared at the infield scoreboard, expecting to see a record mark flashed there. When the scoreboard read 8.95 Powell took off on a 100-meter sprint down the straightaway of the track. The 27-year-old native of Philadelphia, who moved to Los Angeles at age 11, started his sports career as a basketball player. “Yeah, I thought I was the next Michael Jordan or something,” Powell said. Certainly, the name Air Powell would seem to fit, wouldn’t it? Powell began college at Cal-Irvine, where he stayed for three years before transferring to UCLA for his senior season. Until his second year at Irvine, Powell dabbled in both the high and long jumps. “But on my first time out in my second year there, I jumped 26-5¾ right out of the box, and from that point on I was a long jumper,” he said. For more than a decade, Lewis has been the long jumper who was supposed to take Beamon’s record. He has moved steadily toward it. In his only other long jump competition this year, Lewis defeated Powell at the U.S. national championships on June 15 in New York when he leaped 28-4¼ on his final jump to win by one-half inch. “I came here to Tokyo to try to run and jump better than I ever have before, and I accomplished both of those things,” Lewis said. “So I can’t be unhappy with my performance. “Last October I had knee surgery and was on crutches, and now I’ve got a 9.86 (a world record in winning the 100 meters) and several 29-foot jumps. I don’t think that’s too bad.
“This was only my second meet of the year and I think that’s where Mike had an advantage over me.”
It certainly didn’t seem to be much of an advantage when Lewis passed Beamon’s distance on his fourth jump of the night.
But Powell came right back to grab the record —and then had to sweat it out to the end.
“I didn’t feel like I’d won anything until it was over,” Powell said. “I thought he was going to beat me, to tell you the truth. I was hoping and praying he wouldn’t but deep, down inside, I thought he was going to go nine meters and win.
“Watching Carl, I was feeling faint. Breaking the world record is a traumatic experience. I was trying to let that sink in and I was also thinking about Carl Lewis coming down the runway one more time.
“I thought to myself, ‘Oh, gosh, this is terrible.’
“When I saw him jump, I knew it was good. But I didn’t think it was far enough to win.”
That’s when Powell took off on a victory dance. First, he hugged the stunned Japanese official at the takeoff board and then he raced into the stands to embrace his coach, Randy Huntington.