Talk:Bob Beamon

Need citation for "Beamon('s) — unfamiliar(ity) with metric measurements..."

The following sentence in the "1968 Summer Olympics" section is unsourced and seems to be saying something a bit different from what was (presumably) intended.

"When the announcer called out the distance for the jump, Beamon — unfamiliar with metric measurements — wasn't affected by it"

It seems doubtful (to me), that a world-class long jumper, competing in (presumably) not-his-first International Track and Field event, would be so unfamiliar with "the metric measurements" that he did not understand that he had broken the world record. If the World Record had been 8.35m and his jump was 8.9m, I believe we can assume that he understood that 8.9 is greater than 8.35 - regardless of what system of units is being used. I presume what the author might have been trying to say is something more like,

"When the announcer called out the distance for the jump, Beamon — unpracticed at quickly converting metric measurements — did not immediately grasp by how much he had bested the previous world record."

or maybe even,

"When the announcer called out the distance for the jump, Beamon — perhaps mistrusting his hearing or his ability to correctly convert metric to English units — did not immediately realize that he had bested the previous world record by nearly two feet."

But I have no source or citation to support either of these statements / presumptions either so I have flagged the statement as "needs citation" and leave it to others to seek out such a citation or (alternatively) remove the statement from this article. Pugetbill (talk) 22:05, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you are just not familiar with how clueless or ignorant the average american is to metric measurements, even now. In Beamon's day it was worse. His international competition experience outside of the USA was minimal if any existed. I can't find any. He was a collegiate athlete until earlier that year, then competed in USA Invitational events. At the time, everything was imperial. AAU, NCAA and even NFHS (High Schools) didn't convert to metric for another decade. Even after that, many resist and are (maybe not elite athletes on the European circuit) still clueless to metric measurement. Trackinfo (talk) 00:13, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

And in feet and inches?

Would it infringe some vitally important WP policy if, in addition to the metric measures of these various jumps currently provided in the article, their equivalents in feet and inches were also quoted in parentheses? In Beamon's country, these are still the measurements most people are familiar with on a day-to-day basis..... Nandt1 (talk) 12:05, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Going through the History, I see that these equivalents were formerly provided in the article, and that at some stage some "very helpful" editor came along and deleted them all. Any serious substantive (as opposed to bureaucratic) reason not to revert those deletions? Nandt1 (talk) 12:11, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I now see it was an anonymous editor who -- without discussion -- deleted all of the equivalents in feet and inches from the article. I have now gone through and manually reinserted them all. I'd be grateful not to have to do this again. Nandt1 (talk) 13:33, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

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Further jumps

The core of this article is about BB's first jump in the Olympic finals. It goes on to say that his legs gave out upon learning the enormity of his effort. Did he even try to do his next two jumps? Kdammers (talk) 07:54, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Altitude of world record venue.

I’m surprised there’s no mention that the altitude of Mexico City (2,240 meters or 7,350 ft) was probably a major factor in Beamon breaking the record by that much. The air is much thinner at that altitude, allowing for farther jumps. Tvx1 22:17, 18 October 2023 (UTC)