Previewing the Long Jump at the Tokyo Olympics
Long Jump Competition for Male Athletes Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020
Given the state of the event in 2021, the men’s long jump at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics promises to be one of the most competitive events.
With his singular goals, US jumping star JuVaughn Harrison has catapulted to the forefront of the sport, making this competition one of the most anticipated in recent memory.
This year, the 22-year-old has made it a habit of winning both the high jump and the long jump at major competitions.
He won both events at the Southeastern Conference indoor championships, the NCAA indoor and outdoor championships, and, incredibly, at the US Olympic Trials last month, where he jumped 2.33 metres and a personal best of 8.47 metres, respectively. Because of this, he became the first American athlete since the great Jim Thorpe in 1912 to compete in both events.
As a result, Harrison sees no reason to stop there.
On Friday morning (30), he’ll compete in high jump qualifying; on Saturday evening (31), he’ll compete in long jump qualifying; on Sunday evening (1), he’ll compete in the high jump final; and on Monday morning (15 hours and 10 minutes) he’ll compete in the long jump final (2).
His chances of winning a medal are high in both competitions, but notably in the long jump where he posted the year’s second-best performance at the US Trials.
In addition to his 8.44m season-opening leap, Harrison also owns an 8.45m indoor leap, which places him at No. 8 on the all-time indoor list.
The only man to have jumped farther this year is Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece, the defending European champion, who soared 8.60m at a domestic tournament in late May.
That was a personal best by 28 centimetres (11 inches) above his previous best from the previous year.
He successfully defended his European indoor title with a leap of 8.35 metres, only three centimetres short of his personal best. On July 9th, his penultimate meet before Tokyo, he won with a leap of 8.24 metres.
Juan Miguel Echevarria, a big name in Cuba, is likewise pursuing this.
Since his breakthrough in 2018, when he won the global indoor title with a wind-aided 8.83-meter leap in Stockholm, the 22-year-old has captivated audiences and inspired organisers to lengthen the landing pit for the 2019 competition.
A heavy favourite to win the world championship that year, he performed admirably under intense pressure to finish third in a close fight in Doha.
An 8.69m leap in the fourth round by emerging Jamaican sensation Tajay Gayle secured his triumph, shattering his personal best by 37 centimetres. In 2021, he hasn’t leaped quite as far (8.29m SB), but he still won the Stockholm (8.55m/+2.3m/s) and Jamaican championships.
Jeffery Henderson, the reigning Olympic champion and 2019 world silver medalist, will not be defending his title after finishing sixth at the notoriously difficult US trials.
However, Harrison will be joined by Marquis Dendy (8.35m SB, 8.42m PB), the 2016 world indoor champion, and Steffin McCarter (8.26m SB, PB), who should both figure in the medal hunt.
Maykel Massó, who is the same age as Echevarria, 22, and who is a former world U18 and U20 champion with a personal best of 8.39m this year, will be competing alongside Echevarria.
Carey McLeod, a student at the University of Tennessee, will be competing alongside Gayle. McLeod topped Harrison at the SEC outdoor championships in May by jumping 8.34 metres, a personal best.
Yuki Hashioka, the world under-20 champion in 2018, has been constantly developing and is the main hope for the host country. In June, the 22-year-old won the national championship with an 8.36-meter throw, a personal best that placed him seventh on the 2021 global list.
Female Triple Long Jump Olympic Games Tokyo 2020:
In the women’s long jump in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, anyone who puts out the best performance that day has a shot at a medal.
Multiple medal candidates have emerged during this Olympic season, but no one has yet emerged as the clear frontrunner.
This year, five of the six ladies who legally jumped farther than the still-impressive seven-meter mark will compete in Tokyo.
When compared to American Tara Davis (7.14m) and the venerable 2012 Olympic champion Brittney Reese (7.13m), Nigeria’s Ese Brume, who won bronze at the World Athletics Championships in Doha in 2019, has the highest jump of the year.
Malaika Mihambo, the reigning world champion, is presently ranked tenth on the list of top performers because she has yet to rediscover the form that led to her 2019 victory in Doha (6.92m).
But she did throw 7.02m with the help of the wind in the Wanda Diamond League event in Stockholm earlier this month, so perhaps she is beginning to rediscover her stride.
Three different ladies have come out on top in the four long jump competitions contested so far this year in the Diamond League.
Mihambo of Germany won in Oslo, Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk of Belarus, who won silver in Doha, won the most recent competition in Gateshead, and Ivana Spanovic, a Serbian veteran, won in both Florence and Stockholm.
These competitions were held in an experimental “Final Three” style, but the Olympic finals will return to the more standard six-jump format.
Because of these factors, the outcome is anyone’s guess this year.
Reese, 34, has the most impressive resume of any female competitor, having won four world championships between 2009 and 2017 and finishing second at the 2016 Olympics to Tianna Bartoletta.
She hasn’t competed anywhere but the United States this year, yet she’s broken the seven-meter mark in three separate events and is still setting records 14 years into her career.
Her 22-year-old teammate Davis, on the other hand, is just getting started in her career as a professional athlete.
Davis, who is full of life and energy, recently won the NCAA championship and qualified for the Olympic team by placing second in the US Olympic Trials with a leap of 7.04 metres.
It remains to be seen if Davis can keep up with, or even improve upon, the standard she set in the first half of the year, since several outstanding collegiate athletes find the Olympic journey to be too much of a step following a long NCAA season.
Conclusion
Bekh-Romanchuk of the Ukraine is admirably consistent just beneath the seven-meter line, while Brume jumped well in California in May but has struggled to replicate that form more recently.
Nobody, including Mihambo, has come close to matching the 7.30m jump she made to win the world title in 2019. The Olympic gold medal is practically guaranteed if she can unleash that magic there. If not, there may be many competitors who have their sights set on the gold.
