'The Perfect Jump' - 50 years on

It was a dry, sunny October day in Mexico City and a light wind blew through the Olympic Stadium. The athletes were looking forward to competing on the new tartan track – no more slipping on a loose ash track and shorter spikes on their shoes that wouldn't bury themselves so deep in the wooden springboard.

And of course, the thin air at high altitude, 2,240 meters (7,349 feet) above sea level. While the long-distance runners gasped for air, the lower oxygen pressure didn't present as big a problem in the six seconds required for the long jumpers to take their 19-step run-up and leap into the sandpit. On the contrary, the air pressure could actually speed up the athletes' approaches. In other words: perfect conditions.

But what good are perfect conditions if the perfect athlete can't produce the perfect jump? Luckily, in the Olympic long-jump final on 18 October 1968 at 3:40pm local time, the United States' Bob Beamon managed just that at the first attempt.

An elegant approach and a powerful leap catapulted Beamon head-height with the watching umpire before a shaky landing on his legs. "I landed towards the edge of the pit and was disappointed at first because my behind brushed the sand," recalled Beamon years later. "It wasn't a perfect jump."

A leap into another dimension

But the 65,000 spectators saw it differently. A murmur of disbelief spread among the crowd who had to wait 20 long minutes for the distance to be displayed on the big screen.

"We had a bit of a break," remembered East German silver-medal winner Klaus Beer, speaking to German Sunday paper Welt am Sonntag. And no wonder – the electronic measuring equipment only went up to 8.60 meters and the umpires had to find a steel measuring tape and measure the jump by hand. The result: 8.90 meters. Beamon had broken the world record by 55 centimeters.

But the then-22-year-old New Yorker didn't understand metric measurements and wasn't immediately aware of what he'd done.

"It was only when Ralph Boston [his US teammate and previous world record holder with 8.35 meters] told me I'd jumped over 29 feet that I understood!" he admitted. "I couldn't believe it, I thought I was dreaming, it seemed totally surreal."

But the scoreboard left no doubt: start number 254, distance 8.90 meters. For Sports Illustrated, it was one of the five greatest sporting moments of the 20th century.

The burden of the record

"It was a tremendous experience," said competitor Beer, whose own 8.19-meter jump was impressive in its own right. But the American took the spotlight, leaping around wildly on the track. The legendary Jesse Owens, four-time champion at the infamous 1936 Games in Berlin and long-jump record holder from 1935 to 1960 (8.13 meters), called it a "leap into the next century."

Not quite. At the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, Beamon's compatriot Mike Powell jumped five centimeters further still. But it was perhaps a relief for Beamon who, just two years after his record jump, described the burden that lay upon his shoulders: "It's as if I can't breathe anymore," said the man who was once a tailor's apprentice. "The record is wearing me out."

Owens had predicted as much in 1968. "You need huge moral resilience to carry such a record," he said, speaking from experience. "Because people always expect more."

Three numbers

It took Beamon a long time to come to terms with his popularity and the pressure. After his retirement from athletics, he had a short career as a pro basketball player, first with the Phoenix Suns in the NBA and then with the Harlem Globetrotters. He did a university degree in psychology and made an unsuccessful comeback as a long jumper in the early 70s, before trying his hand as a social worker, a night club manager and training center coordinator.

After many ups and downs, he returned to elite sport in 2004 as an adviser to the US Olympic team in Athens. But not long afterwards he  took up a post as head of the "Art of the Olympians Museum" in Fort Myers, Florida.

He struggled for continuity in his private life, too, going through four marriages and suffering from diabetes – despite, he insists, an active lifestyle. It's the tough fate of a man who seemingly had fortune fall into his lap. In another time, 50 years ago in Mexico City.

Yet still he manages to make people smile. All he needs are three numbers and a decimal point in between: "8.90." Three numbers and everybody knows what they mean. He doesn't even need to mention his name.