Eliminate the circle for throws. Who ever throws furthest from any point wins.
John Rigeon is a failed hurdler for the 80s UK . He was a good junior and couldn’t make it as a senior because he’s soft. Now he wants to make soft rules for soft athletes.
Athletics/track is a participation sport. Embrace it for what it is. Other sports would love our participation numbers.
I thought baseball fans were ridiculously closed minded when it came to change, but this discussion is proving T&F fans may be also. I love this idea. I want to see who can jump the furthest, that is the whole idea, not who can plant their takeoff the most accurately. There are plenty of other changes the sport should consider. You want to reduce confusion, how about the Decathlon winner almost never crossing the line first in the final event, how is that for confusing and killing fan interest. Why not stagger the 1500m based on score, then let everyone literally chase the leader...whoever crosses the line first gets the crown of Worlds Greatest Athlete.
I absolutely agree with this, the response to this rule change has been very disappointing. Track and Field should be about pushing the limits of human performance. The long jump should be about absolute speed and power. I want to see the absolute limits that a human can project their body through the air, not watch some choreographed run down the runway so athlete's can hit some arbitrary mark. Remove the board and let 'er rip!
Okay, then let's have the sprinters use garden hoes to dig their starting blocks like Jesse Owens had to do in the 1930s. No one debates if Owens was faster that Bolt, but it is entirely possible. Now you have drugs, multiple coaches, computer analysis, trampoline tracks and shoes, and on and on it goes to muck up the works. Can you really say it's a world record? I give up.
This rule, if adopted down to high school and age-group level, will effectively kill the event and severely damage the sport.
1. I'll start with my opinion that long jump parents and coaches are the worst. They are the most vocal and aggressive fans in the sport. As an official, I have only ever been screamed at or threatened by the aforementioned individuals. They always question fouls, demand courtesy measurements, ask to examine the tape, and file protests. It's non-stop, scary, and I refuse to judge long jump any longer.
2. Most other officials feel the same way. There is already a huge shortage of certified officials due to age and younger blood not stepping up to become officials. If LJ parents and coaches start beefing over every measurement ("Whoa! My athlete took off five centimeters behind where you placed the tape!"), the officials are going to quit in droves. No volunteer or low paid official should have to deal with that crap.
3. Lose officials or have violent confrontations at track meets, then LJ will no longer be offered or meets will fold completely to avoid liability.
Most coaches and parents at track meets are pretty chill except for long jump. If the take-off point becomes somewhat arbitrary and subject to a retiree's vision, then all hell is going to break loose. In some places, assaults or even shootings will happen. This isn't hyperbole. It's been getting worse for years as angry Little League parent behavior invades our sport.
I don't know where you officiate but I have not seen much of this in Colorado, and I've run a fair number of long jump competitions here. You could sprinkle a little bit of chalk dust or put down a sheet of plastic in the take-off zone and then you can point to the mark the athlete's foot made where they took off. When the take-off zone gets too chewed up you put some more chalk down or pull up the old sheet of plastic and put a new one down. If anything I think this has the potential to reduce conflicts over scratches.
At any rate if WA does go down this path it will be years before it trickles down to college and eventually high school (if ever), and by then someone will have a solution for marking the takeoff step.
There are way too many kids doing the long jump at the high school level if what you say is true.
I've never done a field event so I genuinely don't know the answer to this: how would spotting the takeoff point be any different than spotting the landing point of a shot put when it doesn't make a mark (such as in indoor)? Don't they spot the landing without high tech equipment?
At least you have the humility to state you just don't know.
As an official, I can say with certainty that correctly marking marking the forward-most point of a footfall (with someone sprinting about four steps per second) would be MUCH harder than correctly marking the point of contact for a weight falling from the air through a parabola.
Allowing long jumpers to take off anywhere within a certain zone and then measuring the total distance they jumped would be similar to allowing 100 meter sprinters to do whatever they wish while covering 120 meters and only measuring their fastest 100 meter segment.
Starting a sprint from a still position from behind a specific starting line is a necessary and valuable skill that is an essential part of sprinting, just as jumping from behind a specific edge of a take off board is a necessary and valuable skill that is an essential part of long jumping.
One reason that the proposed rule change is so misguided is that it assumes that the only thing that excites the crowd is distances jumped. In fact, it is precisely the threat of fouling that creates the drama in competition: even when the heavy favorite is up for his or her final attempt, winning is never a foregone conclusion because the jumper still has to manage to take off close to the end of the board without going over. TV coverage of the jumps rarely allows for the stage to be set so that the true drama can be enjoyed.
I've never done a field event so I genuinely don't know the answer to this: how would spotting the takeoff point be any different than spotting the landing point of a shot put when it doesn't make a mark (such as in indoor)? Don't they spot the landing without high tech equipment?
At least you have the humility to state you just don't know.
As an official, I can say with certainty that correctly marking marking the forward-most point of a footfall (with someone sprinting about four steps per second) would be MUCH harder than correctly marking the point of contact for a weight falling from the air through a parabola.
indoor shots are covered in chalk to make a mark where they hit.
The event was created to see who jumps the furthest. If one athletes jumps 22' and takes off 5 inches behind the front of the board, and another athlete jumps 22' 3" and hits perfectly at the end of the board, athlete 2 wins the event, but didn't technically jump the furthest. The only reason i couldn't get behind this change is because it wont be able to be implemented at all levels (at least immediately). We still have small towns in ND that don't have FAT and still hand time events. These places would never get around to adopting this new system if they haven't even started to use FAT.
The event was created to see who jumps the furthest. If one athletes jumps 22' and takes off 5 inches behind the front of the board, and another athlete jumps 22' 3" and hits perfectly at the end of the board, athlete 2 wins the event, but didn't technically jump the furthest. The only reason i couldn't get behind this change is because it wont be able to be implemented at all levels (at least immediately). We still have small towns in ND that don't have FAT and still hand time events. These places would never get around to adopting this new system if they haven't even started to use FAT.
i don't think things need to be implemented across all levels. like how higher levels get pacers or even pacing lights.
if they were to do something like this, I think the takeoff area should still be very small. like 6 inches or something. there should be some skill in finding the takeoff area. and of course by the time these professional LJers with the new rules get there, they will be used to the old rules with one line, so they will have that skill.
Why not simplify the whole thing? All measurements are from the front edge of the pit. No boards, no take-off zones, no visual spotting other than the landing point, no need for lasers or video. Use the entire runway and have a painted area as a visual cue to denote the end of the runway/edge of the pit.
The local CYO youth league does this for kids under age 10. No fouls and no controversy. If your toes touch the sand at takeoff - that's where the measurement is.
I’m for the idea. Current LJ technology already immediately tells jumpers/viewers how many cm away from the front of the board they were. Just add that in at the end of the jump. in baseball you immediately know how fast and how far every pitch and hit is. in golf, they instantaneously measure every shot. This can easily be done for high level LJ competitions. expand the board a bit and cut number of jumps. You’ll still have people fouling.
Additionally it’s silly to say if it can’t happen at the high school level it shouldn’t happen. NFL, NBA, MLB, FIFA WTA tennis all use video replay and some use laser lines to mark balls in or goals called. No one argues those leagues shouldn’t use technology because high schools can’t! All major sports have had significant rule changes to make them more enjoyable - track and field should be no different.
I absolutely agree with this, the response to this rule change has been very disappointing. Track and Field should be about pushing the limits of human performance. The long jump should be about absolute speed and power. I want to see the absolute limits that a human can project their body through the air, not watch some choreographed run down the runway so athlete's can hit some arbitrary mark. Remove the board and let 'er rip!
Okay, then let's have the sprinters use garden hoes to dig their starting blocks like Jesse Owens had to do in the 1930s. No one debates if Owens was faster that Bolt, but it is entirely possible. Now you have drugs, multiple coaches, computer analysis, trampoline tracks and shoes, and on and on it goes to muck up the works. Can you really say it's a world record? I give up.
You bring up a good point. What was wrong with running on dirt or cinders? For all its "improvements" the sport isn't any more popular than it was back then.
It's now just a vehicle for selling overpriced shoes.
So we'll get a new generation of jumpers that have artificially boosted performances, claiming that "better nutrition and training" accounts for the longer jumps.
Having a zone fundamentally changes the sport. Part of long jumping is precisely knowing your steps to the board and hitting it perfectly. The making the basket bigger for free throws analogy is a pretty good one.
Having a zone fundamentally changes the sport. Part of long jumping is precisely knowing your steps to the board and hitting it perfectly. The making the basket bigger for free throws analogy is a pretty good one.
It's not a good analogy at all. The whole point of shooting a free throw is to get the ball in the basket, hitting the board is not the point of the long jump, seeing how far you can jump is. There have been so many straw men thrown out in this thread comparing this rule change to so many other events and most of them make no sense at all. Unlike all the other comparisons everyone is making, this rule change isn't going to change the long jump one bit: Athletes will still run the exact same approach, they will execute the same take-off, flight mechanics and landing that long-jumpers always have. The only difference here is how they measure it. If anything the closest "analogy" is when we went from hand timing track races to FAT, athletes still ran the same races, the officials just timed them differently. And just like automatic timing, there will still be middle schools and high schools all over the place that will still use a board for measuring long jumps, just like they are still hand timing races.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
The event was created to see who jumps the furthest. If one athletes jumps 22' and takes off 5 inches behind the front of the board, and another athlete jumps 22' 3" and hits perfectly at the end of the board, athlete 2 wins the event, but didn't technically jump the furthest. The only reason i couldn't get behind this change is because it wont be able to be implemented at all levels (at least immediately). We still have small towns in ND that don't have FAT and still hand time events. These places would never get around to adopting this new system if they haven't even started to use FAT.
i don't think things need to be implemented across all levels. like how higher levels get pacers or even pacing lights.
if they were to do something like this, I think the takeoff area should still be very small. like 6 inches or something. there should be some skill in finding the takeoff area. and of course by the time these professional LJers with the new rules get there, they will be used to the old rules with one line, so they will have that skill.
Pacing lights gives me an idea. When you watch long jump on TV you can see a line of the records and where the leaders are. Why not put this line on the sand for the jumpers to see the mark to aim for? This would be the same type of an advantage as pacing lights and only available at the top level.
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