Oldest record

[bambam1729]

True! A recent decathlete from Afghanistan jumped 6.66m in 2016. I bet that messed with his mind.

I would bet in Afghanistan that 666 does not have the same meaning it does in English speaking countries and he likely did not know what we think of it.

[scottmitchell74]

Very interesting thread.

[Trickstat]

I think 2 possible reasons for the tendency of long jump records to last a long time are:

1) While the runway surface has changed over the years which should help speedwise, you are still taking off from a simple wooden (or sometimes nowadays plastic?) board and then travelling through the air before landing.
2) Unlike many other field events, there hasn't really been a major change in technique such as the flop, vaulting with a pole that bends, the shift and then spin in the shot etc. I think this is because there isn't scope for one because, at heart, it is a relatively simple event. Obviously, it isn't that simple in practice as shown by the difficulty many athletes have in repeating their best jumps.

[Conor Dary]

We had a thread on this years ago...

https://trackandfieldnews.com/discussion/showthread.php?97201-Old-High-School-Records/page2&highlight=long%20jump%20Hinsdale