In Praise of Brittney Reese

[CookyMonzta]

JJK's career clashed with Drechsler's, yes, but that's precisely what pushed them to greater distances - amongst other things. And had they not been competing in the late 80's and 90's, you can bet they wouldn't have been jumping as far...

Are you sure about that? 🤔 Jackie was as clean as they came; which to me makes her 7.4x performances worth the same in this day and age. I will not punish or penalize her for her performances coming in an age where the dirt was still rampant. [And may I add, nor did I punish the highly-suspected but never caught.] I cannot comment on who and how far the GDR went with their state-sponsored program; but 5 years after the Wall came down, Drechsler was still popping long performances, including her barely-wind-aided 25-footer in 1992. As gifted as these two were, I'd bet they'd still leave everyone far behind if they were jumping today. They didn't start to lose their mojos until after Atlanta 1996 (Jackie first, being 2 years older). Like the pound-for-pound boxing argument, in the era-for-era argument, I'd still have to lean toward Jackie at #2. Those 3 big ones in the big ones (against Drechsler) are hard for me to ignore.

[CookyMonzta]

I'm just finishing up a research project that I've worked on off-and-on since the mid 80s - a catalog of all of the 27 foot jumps by Myricks and Lewis.

Myricks had 96 career jumps of 27-6 or longer, and 29 jumps of 8.50 or longer.

Lewis didn't have nearly the volume of competitions Myricks did, but he had 136 (!!) jumps of 27-6 or longer, including 87 of at least 8.50 and 21 jumps at 8.70.

I think I also had a compilation for Mike Powell, but it was only on paper and it seems to be gone. The only other jumper who is up with them in terms of 27 footers is Pedroso, and I know I never compiled his list.

When Lewis came along with his first 28-footer in 1981, Myricks had yet to reach that plateau. He was stuck at 8.52 (from 1979, a half-inch short); then Lutz Dombrowski popped 8.54 in Moscow 1980. But after Lewis popped his big 8.76 jump in the summer of 1982, to be followed by what looked to be a 30-foot foul (or very close to that), that's when Myricks really got his mojo going, with his first 28-footer (8.56) in Rhede later that summer.

[CookyMonzta]

Not even Echevarría?

With 8.68, 8.66 and 8.65, and 8.92w and 8.83w (2.1!); methinks he should have won going away in Tokyo, even if his PR wasn't that far ahead of Tentóglou's (8.60).

[Wiederganger]

By pretty much any objective criteria JJK is a superior LJer to Reese.

You mean, other than Olympic medal tally, World medal tally, World Indoor medal tally and number 1 rankings? Pray tell what the objective criteria is, because it just seems to be distances?

JJK's career clashed with Drechsler's, yes, but that's precisely what pushed them to greater distances - amongst other things. And had they not been competing in the late 80's and 90's, you can bet they wouldn't have been jumping as far...

I think I get it now. So as my other post said, I guess Natalya Lisovskaya is the greatest female SPer of all time, greater than Adams, because her one Olympic & World gold is better than Adams two and four, because her distances were massively further and Adams never threw over 22m in a Champs. And Hellmann's one Olympic gold & two World golds are better than Perkovic's two Olympic and two World golds, silver & bronze, because Perkovic never threw over 71m in a Championships.

Since when did performances out rank medals and world rankings? 🙄

[El Toro]

There was far more dirt in the shot than it ever was in the long jump or triple jump. More shot-putters are getting caught dirty even today than horizontal jumpers.

Ahh, the eternal truth that it is always the OTHER events/countries/sports that are dirty.

Firstly, hardly anybody got caught doping in the 80s and what doping control there was, was targeted at throwers, so it's not surprising they were caught more often. If you rarely test certain events, your chances of getting caught are next to zero - see USA pro sports.

Secondly, the male shot putters NOT getting caught are at a higher overall level of performance now than heavily doped putters in the 80s, and that's in an unpopular event. In the modern day, elite sprinters seem to be caught more often than SPers.

Now, LJ, a slightly more popular event than SP, is worse than the 80s as are many women's events, so you might need to reconsider how useful doping is to ANY power event and what was happening across the board in the 1980s.

Oh, and yes, praise be to Brittney Reese - she's outstanding!

[gm]

I'm just finishing up a research project that I've worked on off-and-on since the mid 80s - a catalog of all of the 27 foot jumps by Myricks and Lewis.

Myricks had 96 career jumps of 27-6 or longer, and 29 jumps of 8.50 or longer.

Lewis didn't have nearly the volume of competitions Myricks did, but he had 136 (!!) jumps of 27-6 or longer, including 87 of at least 8.50 and 21 jumps at 8.70.

I think I also had a compilation for Mike Powell, but it was only on paper and it seems to be gone. The only other jumper who is up with them in terms of 27 footers is Pedroso, and I know I never compiled his list.

Counting ancillary jumps and indoor marks, I have Pedroso with 166 marks at 8.23 or better.

[cigar95]

You ain't kiddin'! And it didn't take long for Myricks to step up his game. Unless I see one or more guys popping 8.50 on a consistent basis, I doubt that they will ever crack my all-time top 10. None of these guys today strike me as being the total package.

I'm just finishing up a research project that I've worked on off-and-on since the mid 80s - a catalog of all of the 27 foot jumps by Myricks and Lewis.

Myricks had 96 career jumps of 27-6 or longer, and 29 jumps of 8.50 or longer.

Lewis didn't have nearly the volume of competitions Myricks did, but he had 136 (!!) jumps of 27-6 or longer, including 87 of at least 8.50 and 21 jumps at 8.70.

I think I also had a compilation for Mike Powell, but it was only on paper and it seems to be gone. The only other jumper who is up with them in terms of 27 footers is Pedroso, and I know I never compiled his list.

[gh]

..None of these guys today strike me as being the total package.

Not even Echevarría?

[bad hammy]

By pretty much any objective criteria JJK is a superior LJer to Reese. Reese is outstanding and the best we've had this century but she's no JJK, which is no knock on Reese . . .

[CookyMonzta]

The men face the same issue. I don't know if King Carl spoiled us but I miss the days when 27'6" was the beginning of the conversation.

You ain't kiddin'! And it didn't take long for Myricks to step up his game. Unless I see one or more guys popping 8.50 on a consistent basis, I doubt that they will ever crack my all-time top 10. None of these guys today strike me as being the total package.

[CookyMonzta]

JJK has the distances, but Reese has the greater hardware. But IMO tying to compare LJ performances from a completely different era is problematic.

Times and distances should be ranked below medals and number 1 rankings. Or are we saying that Lisovskaya is greater than Adams, or Hellmann greater than Perkovic? No, thought not.

But then where did JJK put on some of her greatest performances? Three of them came on the biggest stage available to her, all 3 being 24-footers in head-to-head matchups against Drechsler, among others.

Jackie might not have the hardware that Reese has (World Champs being 4 years apart in her prime, abd primarily a hurdles specialist indoors), but the hardware she does have, combined with her performances on the biggest stages available (unmatched by anyone since), and her rankings record, were more than enough for me to keep her as my #2...

...And speaking of which, there are some here who once insisted on ranking Göhr in the top 3 (even #1) in the 100, despite the fact that that her world competition record, at her very best, included one World Cup win, one World Champs win, and an Olympic silver medal in a race she should not have lost. Her being ranked in my top 10 (behind Rudolph in a longevity-deficient era, behind Stecher and behind a fast-rising Thompson- Herah) obviously comes from her performances. At the time, none but Evelyn Ashford was running what she was running, the exception being that Evelyn has more hardware to go with her performances and WRs. Until Shelly came along with her eye-popping performances to go with her medal haul, I considered Evelyn to be the total package in her event...

...Which is how I viewed Jackie, when I tested her LJ record against Brittney's. And strangely enough, Drechsler never jumped 24 feet in a World, Olympic or even European championship competition. The closest she came was 7.30 at the 1990 Euros.

[Wiederganger]

JJK has the distances, but Reese has the greater hardware. But IMO tying to compare LJ performances from a completely different era is problematic.

Times and distances should be ranked below medals and number 1 rankings. Or are we saying that Lisovskaya is greater than Adams, or Hellmann greater than Perkovic? No, thought not.

[jeremyp]

The men face the same issue. I don't know if King Carl spoiled us but I miss the days when 27'6" was the beginning of the conversation.

I get tired of saying: "Jesse Owens jumped further...in 1935."

[ATK]

At a time when triple-jumps of 15 meters (starting with Ana Biryukova in 1993), 50 feet and even 51 feet are coming like clockwork, you'd think the 24-foot barrier would have been reached by many on the world circuit and many times over.

Just to follow up on this point, the women's triple jump is not a good comparison here.

Rojas is the only person consistently jumping 15m like "clockwork". If 50ft = 15.24m then again, only Rojas in the past 5 years (only Rojas (6 jumps) + Ibarguen & Rypakova (1 jump each) in the past 13 years). Plus the Womens triple jump has only been an official event internationally for barely over 30 years compared to almost a century of the long jump.

1990 - 1999: 8 women went 15m or better (1 athlete/2 performances above 15.24m)
2000 - 2009: 14 women went 15m or better (5 athletes/11 performances above 15.24m)
2009 - Present: 6 women went 15m or better (3 athletes/8 performances above 15.24m)

If anything, Rojas aside, we have seen a drastic downturn in the triple jump compared to the 2000's, just the 2nd decade the event was available for official records and international medals.

[Atticus]

In doing the write-up of the 2021 OT for the 2024 OT e-book on the T&FN site

Say what?