Banned as a safety issue. It would look bad to have someone paralyzed during the long jump (and be bad for the person). Coaches have a hard enough time teaching proper LF technique as it is, imagine adding in an acrobatic move! Plus track athletes are not always great "athletes" with great motor control or body control (field athletes more so but a lot of jumpers are just fast people who are taught to jump).
How about an event where you run quickly carrying a 17+ foot long flexible fiberglass rod, set the end of it into a box on the ground while holding firmly onto the rod while you transfer all you momentum into it so it bends and catapults you up tp 20 feet up in the air! While being flung upwards you become totally inverted and upside down with your feet above your head. As you fly upwards you have to make another acrobatic move where you rotate your body 180 degrees so its facing the opposite direction you were running, bend at the hips with your feet on one side of a horizontal pole and your head on another, while pushing yourself off the end of that rod.
And then you have to align yourself in the air so when you fall back 20 feet down you land on your butt and back instead of your head.
Essentially when done correctly this technique is a flip with a twist.
This is all very hard for coaches to teach and athletes to learn. And there are many people who have great motor and body control to do this.
It not only looks bad but it is really bad when athletes fail when trying to do this properly and become paralyzed.
This event called the 'pole vault' involves extremely difficult techniques and can be unsafe and dangerous.
Why is pole vaulting allowed as a safe event when flipping during a long jump is prohibited as unsafe?
Legit point. I was making the case about the jumps and not the vault. I was pretty focused. Yes the PV is dangerous as well. That is a reason a few vaulters went to wearing helmets.
HS are not generally propelling themselves 20 feet in the air. They also have this pretty soft pad to land on (although I have seen "misses").
That does not dismiss the argument that a flip in the LJ would be many times more of a risk for cataclysmic injury. Whenever putting rules in place there has to be a consideration of acceptable risk. The acceptable risk for allowing a flip in the LG is deemed to be too high.
I remember when that was first tried, thinking some cat at Washingston or was it WSU?
Anyway....
When did anyone come up with that being the way to do it, show me.
A New Zealand guy,
In 1974, New Zealander Tuariki Delamere, a Washington State University long jumper, attempted a front flip in the air during a collegiate track and field meet, a technique that was subsequently banned by the sport's governing body due to safety concerns.
He is still active on the T&FN page
Also known as 'John' Delamere . Good long jumper without the flip too.