Here's a question that I'm sure everybody has always wondered. Does triple jump always have to have the same leg combination? For example, isn't it Left, Left, Right? What would happen if they alternated on every step? Left, Right, Left. Would the jump be farther or shorter?
Did Bob Beamon ever jump close to his Mexico City record?
I was not fully recognized how much the altitude of Mexico City aided athletes (more recently, Allyson Felix ran 22.11 as a Junior and her best in the lowlands was 22.51.
As for Beamon, not only did he have the altitude, he also had a lot of wind. It was listed as 2.0, but there is A LOT of evidence that the wind readings were done incorrectly when person B was doing the readings. All of person B's readings were integers, like 2, 3, and some 1s. When person A was not doing the (preliminary?) rounds of the hurdles the readings were done correctly and you get the dominant proportion (90%) with some tenths recorded. The readings between 2.0 and 2.9 were all given a reading of 2.0, so it is 90% likely that it was wind aided. See the thread on the Track and Field News discussion board back some years ago (4-8?), including commentary from people who were there. I remember watching on TV as a teenager.
There were no more stellar long jumps that day because right after Beamon's jump it poured very heavily. I think that in the triple jump at the 68 Games, the World Record was broken at least 3 times. Also, the warm, humid air right before the storm hit would have also helped a little, and if I recall correctly, he got all of the board. Absolutely everything was right for that jump: (excess) wind, perfect board, very high altitude, warm/humid air (but unless it was hot it does not help that much. But if there was a heavy storm, it was likely a low pressure system which lowered the air density and helped also.
I think that Beamon set the world indoor record later, but I am not sure that he ever jumped 28 feet. In part, he could not reproduce jumps in that range.
What are her LJ and 100M PR's? Huge performance gains in the TJ are possible through technique refinement as long as the underlying ability is there. 48' should be low 11's in the 100 and over 21' in the LJ.