Take a tape measure, go out onto your backyard or lawn, or any quiet stretch of road or pavement will do, and mark out eight metres and ninety five centimetres (29’4¼”). Pace it out, then stand aside a little, and take a good look at it. And wonder how it’s possible for a man to jump that far, without being born on the planet Krypton!

That distance, and the marginally shorter mark of 8.90m were marked out on the floor of the conference room of the City Hall in Belgrade, Serbia last week.

The stretch virtually covered the width of the hall. And the reason for the display is that the special guests at last weekend’s Belgrade Banca Intesa Marathon were long jumpers par excellence, Mike Powell and Bob Beamon.

And those distances are, of course, the world record that Beamon set in winning Olympic gold in Mexico City in 1968, and the one that broke it, set by Powell in winning the World Championships title in Tokyo 1991.

So can a man really fly!.......Mike Jordan seems to travel in the air, Mike Powell simply glide through, same as Carl Lewis above, but..........

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