Carl Lewis: “World Athletics are trying to erase Mike Powell’s world record”

The nine-time Olympic and eight-time world champion on why he’s so troubled by World Athletics’ lengthy soar proposals, why athletics wants an overhaul in its outlook and why the way in which it’s ruled ought to be reconsidered

Forged your thoughts again to the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, when Mike Powell and Carl Lewis took the lengthy soar to new ranges. Lewis, the reigning double Olympic and world champion, flew out to a wind-assisted 8.91m within the fifth spherical, surpassing Bob Beamon’s superlative 8.90m from the 1968 Mexico Olympics.

The then 30-year-old had gained his earlier 65 lengthy soar competitions, spanning a decade, however even he was astonished on the magnitude of his achievement, elevating each arms above his head with a glance of shock on his face.

Powell had taken silver within the lengthy soar behind Lewis on the 1988 Seoul Olympics and, on the 1990 Goodwill Video games in Seattle, misplaced to his compatriot by simply 4 centimetres. One 12 months on, within the muggy night time air of the Japanese capital, Powell knew he had a possibility to achieve the highest step of the rostrum. Nonetheless feeling aggrieved that his fourth-round effort was dominated out as a foul, he charged down the runway and catapulted himself into the night time sky.

Finally, he landed within the pit, simply wanting the nine-metre mark. He waited and stared on the display screen for affirmation of simply how far he had travelled. All of a sudden, the gang erupted and Powell, along with his knees virtually touching his chest as a result of pleasure, danced his means across the exterior lane of the observe. The mark? 8.95m.

Lewis responded with 8.87m in his remaining spherical nevertheless it wasn’t sufficient. Powell was the world champion after what had been the best males’s lengthy soar competitors in historical past.

It nonetheless is. No athlete has managed to get inside 20cm of Powell’s mark, Dwight Phillips coming the closest with 8.74m again in 2009. Nonetheless, any debate about who may be capable of sooner or later attain that fabled commonplace has been changed by one other query: “What’s going to the very way forward for the occasion appear to be?”.

Final month, for the primary time, World Athletics trialled their well-publicised lengthy soar proposals, with makes an attempt measured with assistance from cameras from the place the entrance foot leaves the bottom in a 40cm “take-off” zone, somewhat than the standard 20cm board.

The event was a part of the competitors programme on the ISTAF Indoor Dusseldorf and Berlin conferences and, if profitable, could possibly be rolled out in elite competitors from 2026 onwards.

When the thought was first mooted, it was met with virtually widespread condemnation from the leaping neighborhood – lots of whom imagine the ability concerned within the occasion is being enormously decreased. Some even refused to compete on the German occasions in protest.

Malaika Mihambo, winner in Dusseldorf, was constructive in regards to the modifications after her first expertise of them. “I’m open to attempting this out to find out whether or not it’s significant, thrilling and helpful,” she mentioned. “This might make lengthy leaping extra thrilling.”

However Lewis, who secured 4 Olympic lengthy soar golds and nonetheless holds the world indoor report of 8.79m, believes there’s a actual danger that World Athletics will attempt to take away the marks of his era.

“Being trustworthy, I believe these modifications are taking place as a result of World Athletics try to erase Mike Powell’s world report,” he says, talking to AW on a video name from Houston, the place he’s head coach of observe and subject on the college.

“It seems like they wish to overlook that period as a result of we had been a lot extra dominant. I believe World Athletics have simply determined jumpers are usually not going to leap far anymore.

“I believe they’ve determined to begin over. That is the start step and in a decade the lengthy soar may find yourself just like the javelin, the place previous data don’t rely. Do you suppose they’ll examine the jumps on a take-off zone to these with the previous marks underneath the earlier board? It is going to be a brand new occasion.”

It’s true that neither the lads’s or girls’s world data are coming underneath menace. The ladies’s mark of seven.52m was set in 1988 by Galina Chistyakova and no athlete competing at this time has bought inside 20cm of that mark. Actually, the 12 largest distances by girls within the occasion had been all recorded within the twentieth century.

World Athletics argue that one of many major causes for trialling the take-off zone concept is as a result of they wish to scale back fouling and pace up the competitors, citing {that a} third of the makes an attempt on the 2023 World Athletics Championships had been fouls and that viewers consideration – within the stadium and on TV – noticeably dipped for the lengthy soar. Some athletes have argued that these fouls in Budapest happened as a result of a change within the board however Lewis believes the basic situation with the occasion isn’t the construction, somewhat the present requirements.

“[Fouling is] a false argument,” he says. “When you take a look at the consistency of main occasions during the last 50 years, fouling hasn’t modified a lot.

“You must cease and suppose: ‘Why would they do that?’ For my part it’s not due to the fouling however due to the distances. Don’t change the principles to make it simpler. We’re saying it’s higher for the followers if it’s less complicated however finally we’ll ignore and overlook what athletes did prior to now.

“You may nonetheless win a males’s lengthy soar competitors by leaping 8.30m or 8.40m at main competitions now. Mike Powell misplaced the Olympics at 8.64m. I additionally jumped 8.50m at 35 years previous. The issue is that we’re not targeted on the excellence of the lengthy soar.

“Folks wish to see athletes do one thing particular and, proper now, athletes aren’t getting close to world data within the lengthy soar. That is me saying it as a fan. Our high folks profitable is great however are the followers seeing something to get them off their ft?”

After competing in Dusseldorf, Mihambo added that: “I used to be pleasantly shocked to search out that the distinction [with a take-off zone] wasn’t as important as I had anticipated” and that “this expertise bolstered my understanding that lengthy soar is about rather more than simply hitting the board”.

World Athletics added that “exams offered clear indications of athletes adjusting run-up technique”, with “athletes adopting a high-risk technique, realizing the danger of fouling is decrease”. Lewis, nonetheless, believes that human nature will dictate the jumpers nonetheless dwell on the sting.

“With a purpose to not foul, individuals are going to maneuver again into the center of the board, however they’re nonetheless going to achieve to get to the tip of the board as a result of that’s what folks do,” he says. “That’s one thing that’s innate in them. If it’s a must to soar over a puddle, you’re not going to stroll two ft again, you’ll simply go to the sting and soar.

“And it’s going to take extra time to measure. Do we actually completely perceive that each single occasion venue goes to measure precisely from this spot to that spot? How can we be constant? I’d say 99 per cent of the services on this planet won’t ever be capable of do it. So it simply actually doesn’t make any sense.”

So would Lewis, who nonetheless holds 5 out of the eight largest distances within the lengthy soar, have altered his strategy for a take-off zone?

“It wouldn’t have modified something that I did and I guess it will’ve been the identical for Mike Powell,” he says. “Understanding the science of the occasion means you possibly can’t adapt your mindset to leap from the center of the board. I had the power to do it as two of my profitable jumps in Olympic finals had been nowhere close to the board and I simply grew to become oblivious to the place it was. That was the way in which I used to be educated. However the overwhelming majority of individuals couldn’t do this.

“The larger situation is how folks strategy the board now. When you examine how we ran again then to what you see now, there’s a distinction. It drives me loopy. Jumpers on the runway now appear to be gymnasts. Simply run, simply dash. There are such a lot of issues that aren’t being mentioned by way of why folks aren’t leaping far.”

Lewis admires and respects athletes – together with European out of doors and indoor lengthy soar silver medallist Larissa Iapichino – who boycotted the Dusseldorf assembly. The nine-time Olympic and eight-time world champion additionally feels for athletes of this era due to the shortage of competitors alternatives exterior of the Diamond League and Continental Tour.

With subject occasions not that includes in new ventures akin to Grand Slam Monitor and final 12 months’s inaugural Athlos NYC assembly, Lewis believes that the jumps and throws will find yourself transferring away from stadia and arenas in future.

“The most effective factor in regards to the lengthy soar is that it’s straightforward to grasp,” he says. “If you will get folks shut up across the sand, then you will get a superb visualisation of the distances concerned.

“Think about a avenue meet with pole vault, lengthy soar and shot put collectively? I’d put everybody as shut collectively as doable. Even within the stands, you possibly can’t fathom how excessive six metres is.

“For instance, if followers are proper across the runway and pit of the pole vault, that bar going: ‘You’ve bought to be kidding me, that’s so excessive’, then they recognize the problem concerned.

“Within the shot put, I’d give each ticket-holder an opportunity to carry it earlier than the occasion and, belief me, they’d go: ‘Good god, this factor is heavy and also you’re throwing it that far?’. These are the sorts of issues that we will do.”

Final June, Lewis joined Michael Johnson and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone for the launch of Grand Slam Monitor in Los Angeles and he believes it’s a needed improvement for the game.

There was criticism in regards to the exclusion of the sector occasions, however Lewis as an alternative argues that it’s as much as these occasions to go their very own means.

“We’ve to understand that observe and subject is presently not skilled,” Lewis says. “Grand Slam Monitor is a superb concept. Operating is doing its factor and I’m 100 per cent behind Michael Johnson.

“Once I hear jumpers saying it’s unfair, I’m pondering: ‘No, do your personal factor!’ Michael didn’t do the lengthy soar so he’s going to do his occasions and what he’s carried out thus far has been fabulous. Provide you with modern concepts the place folks wish to watch your occasion.

“I believe we’ve to get out of this mindset that we’re owed something. Sports activities are usually not owed, they’re earned. If you would like folks to spend their cash and produce their household to return and watch, what are they getting out of it? I believe that’s what Michael understands. We’ve to have distinctive concepts to current this factor.”

Lewis’ view on the worldwide governance and construction of the game is stark. He makes two factors, the primary of which focuses on the advertising and marketing of observe and subject and the way it must be a made for TV product that additionally crosses over to leisure. One instance of that is Grand Slam Monitor’s Miami assembly on Might 2-4 being staged on the identical weekend because the Formulation One Grand Prix.

“It makes a lot sense,” says Lewis. “What’s going to occur is that worldwide Olympians will wish to go on the grid stroll for instance and cross-market. You understand, once I competed, I went to the Grammys and was asking folks about how you can market my sport, with regard to look, uniform and magnificence. I assumed we had been doing one thing mistaken, then.”

On TV protection, he provides: “We satisfaction ourselves in observe and subject of being this three-ring circus however when somebody is within the blocks, a pole-vaulter jumps, everybody cheers after which the observe athletes get instructed to face up. That’s not a tv present. When somebody is within the blocks, on the runway or about to throw, everybody ought to cease.

“Athletes might should be held up but when there’s a business then they should wait. That’s what occurs in different sports activities. The great thing about athletics is that we absorb all sizes and shapes from each nook of the globe. It’s uncommon to have that and we have to showcase the athletes higher.”

Lewis additionally factors to the construction in NFL and the way they’ve monetised the league, pointing to the truth that it raised over $12bn from broadcasters for the 2024/25 season. As compared, World Athletics’ tv and sponsorship rights earnings was $46.3m in 2023.

So what does he imagine is the most important situation concerning the governance at World Athletics?

“The ability of the federations,” he says. “The overwhelming majority don’t have a for-profit mindset. They’d somewhat have credentials for the Olympics as an alternative of athletes making hundreds of thousands of {dollars}. We don’t incentivise our federations to achieve success.

“I believe the one vote for one federation must be scrapped. Once we elect the World Athletics Council, everybody votes. However what if a nation like Fiji, let’s say, wins a gold medal they usually make investments a million {dollars} into observe and subject off the again of it. Ought to they be rewarded with extra votes?

“So, if you need extra votes to elect folks in outstanding positions at World Athletics, it’s a must to put money into your athletes. You’re incomes the suitable to have extra energy. Smaller international locations may construct youth centres off the again of success and, in the event that they did, then they need to be praised for it.”

Lewis finally believes that the main focus of innovation shouldn’t be centred on occasions just like the lengthy soar however as an alternative on the way in which that the game is definitely ruled.

“I simply don’t suppose folks need that sort of transformation inside World Athletics,” he provides. “I really feel that there are too many limitations throughout the governing physique to make it occur.”

Within the extra rapid phrases, shut eyes will probably be stored on how the varied modifications and new occasions tasks impression athletics. For it to actually thrive within the years forward, although, Lewis believes the completely different disciplines will probably be higher off heading in several instructions.

“The game can finally solely evolve if occasions are basically damaged up,” he provides. “They’ll all come collectively for an Olympics, Worlds and different main/nationwide championships however each occasion now must professionalise, discover their very own house and go their very own means.”

This characteristic first appeared within the March situation of AW journal.