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The Daily Dose/October 18, 2007
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around past human experiences...
MEXICO CITY REDUX, PART DOS: On this date in 1968 American Bob Beamon shattered the world record in the long jump, jumping 29 feet, two and one-half inches, eclipsing the old record of 27 feet, four and three-quarter inches by an astounding 21 and three-quarters inches. He jumped so far the optical measuring device at Olympic Stadium couldn't read it, and a tape measure had to be produced to measure his jump.
He was that good for that one moment. In one leap Beamon became the first human to jump both 28 and 29 feet, a Herculean feat that may well be the greatest single-day athletic effort the human species has mustered.
Some Perspective: Beamon's jump was so, well, Beamon-esque, that his world record survived six presidents and the disco era and stood until 1991, when American Mike Powell, spurred on by Carl Lewis, who was having the greatest series of jumps ever, leaped 29 feet, four-and-a-half inches, a record that itself, impressively, still stands.
A Little History With Your Perspective: Long standing long jump records are nothing new. Jesse Owens set a world record of 26 feet, eight and a quarter inches at the Big Ten championships in 1935, a mark he eclipsed by six inches and which stood for 25 years. (Speaking of incredible single-day feats, Owens, in a span of 45 minutes, also tied the world record in the 100 yard dash and broke the world records in the 220-yard dash and the 220 low hurdles)
Consider This: Beamon broke the long jump record by a jaw-dropping 14 percent. For someone to break the current long jump record by fourteen percent, they would have to jump over 33 feet. A similar reduction of the 100 meter record would require someone to run it in 8.38 seconds, a feat that, based on the progression of the 100-meter record over the years, shouldn't happen for over 150 years.
For The Record: Powell broke Beamon's mark by two inches, a little less than what the average long jump record had been broken by over the years.
The Big Picture: It has always been popular to say Beamon, whose second best career jump was a half-inch shorter than the record he broke, benefited mightily from the 7,400 foot altitude in Mexico City, plus the 2.0 meters-per-second breeze, the maximum allowable for world record consideration. And there is some merit to that, because the day before at Olympic Stadium the men's triple jump record was broken five times, a number itself that is as astounding as it is unprecedented.
But that is not entirely fair to Beamon, because - and this is interesting - Beamon was the only jumper in Mexico City to top the then-world record. In fact, he was the only jumper to break 27 feet, a figure that surprises some when they first read it because a lot of people presume that people were flying out of Olympic Stadium left and right that day.
They weren't. Of course, since Beamon decided matters early on, he was the fourth to jump, it is entirely possible that everyone said 'screw it, why bother' and packed it in. In fact, defending Olympic champion Lynn Davies of Great Britain was so distraught he gave up and finished ninth.
FunFact: Beamon's mark is still the Olympic record. It is the oldest Olympic track and field record.
Great Moments In Near Nuclear War: On this date in 1962, it's day three of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Or day 4, depending. The US became aware of Soviet missiles in Cuba on 10/15/62, however nobody bothered to tell President Kennedy until the 16th. So were faced with a value question: does a crisis officially begin when relatively minor government officials become aware of the matter, or when the president is told?
Uh, Can We Get Back On Message Here: On October 18, President Kennedy met with various officials, most of whom favored air strikes on Cuba, followed by an invasion. Kennedy didn't really like this advice, and took no action, and by the evening support was growing for a naval blockade, referred to as a quarantine because a blockade, technically, is an act of war.
That evening, Kennedy would meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who, by chance, had been scheduled to drop by anyway. After some preliminaries about a summit between Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev, Gromyko, unaware that Kennedy knew about the missiles in Cuba, accused the US of "pestering" Cuba, a charge that was not completely without merit, as the year before the US had tried to butt in with the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and, after Fidel Castro had declared Cuba a socialist republic, had launched an economic embargo that is still in effect.
Uh, Yeah, Sure: Gromyko also informed Kennedy that any assistance given to Cuba was solely designed to help Cuba defend herself, presumably against the evil United States. Kennedy declined to inform Gromyko he knew about Soviet missiles in Cuba, even though he had the pictures in a nearby drawer, and later that night the administration began looking into establishing a legal basis for a blockade of Cuba.
SMARTLY JUMPING OFF THE BANDWAGON: All right, we admit it, we lost interest in the Rugby World Cup when our faves the All Blacks were eliminated by France in the quarterfinals, in a match played in Wales despite France being the host country. The third-place game is set for Friday, when France takes on Argentina and the world championship match is Saturday, between South Africa and England. We present this solely as a public service for those who enjoyed our RWC coverage from the start, but didn't care enough about the chase for the Webb Ellis Cup enough to actually search for coverage anyplace else.
Cheaters: Immediately after the New Zealand/France match, and without any justification whatsoever, the experts here at the Writer's Shack issued calls of cheating on the parts of the French and the officials. We did this simply to pout, because our favorite team had lost.
Turns out we can blame the referee, though not for cheating, because the International Rugby Board found the referee for the match, a young English bloke named Wayne Barnes, 28, who was officiating just his eleventh international match, committed several glaring errors, that, if not committed, would of insured victory, glory and a place in heaven for our All Blacks, and defeat and humiliation for the loutish French.
Specifically, the IRB said Barnes failed to detect a forward pass - illegal in rugby union - on France's last try (the equivalent of a touchdown) and his crew also missed two penalties that would've resulted in kicks for the All Blacks, which, if successful, would have been worth three points, significant because the final score was 20-18.
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