Bob Beamon’s 1968 Long Jump, The Leap That Shattered Physics and Expectations
At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, American athlete Bob Beamon delivered a long jump so extraordinary that it stunned the world and redefined the boundaries of human performance. Beamon leapt 8.90 meters (29 feet, 2.5 inches)—a distance so far beyond the existing world record (by 55 centimeters) that officials had to delay the announcement to…