World Athletics was trying to replace the narrower take-off board in long jump events with a larger take-off zone with an aim to reduce fouls. However, with athletes not liking the proposal, the plan has been scrapped.
World Athletics will not be going ahead with the take-off zone innovation in long jump events and will continue with the traditional board after backlash from athletes over the new idea. The governing body for athletics said that it did not want to go to “war” with athletes and had to drop the idea.
World Athletics was aiming to replace the traditional narrower take-off board with a larger take-off zone to reduce the number of fouls in the long jump events. The body had started trials with the new addition but it had received mixed responses. Some big names like the Olympic long jump champion, Miltiadis Tentoglou, had described the proposal as “dog shit”. Carl Lewis, who won four Olympic long jump medals, had also criticised the idea, calling it an “April fool’s joke”.
World Athletics scraps take-off zone
Jon Ridgeon, chief executive of the World Athletics, said that the decision to do away with the innovation came due to the resistance from the athletes.
“You ultimately do not want to go to war with your most important group of people,” he said as quoted by The Guardian.
“The athletes do not want to embrace it,” Ridgeon said. “So we’re not going to do it. Even though I would argue we identified a problem, and found a viable solution, if the athletes don’t want it, fine, we drop it. But I don’t regret looking at that. It’s our job as the governing body.”
World Athletics had found that around a third of long jumps at championships resulted in fouls and that pushed the body to find a solution.
“From the emotional reaction of the crowd, they lose energy with no‑jumps,” Ridgeon said.
“We said: ‘Can we solve that exam question?’ And we created the concept of a wider takeoff zone. We trialled that solution and it trialled well. We would be accused of being asleep at the wheel if we didn’t look for weaknesses,” he said.
“The long jump’s a really exciting and vibrant part of our sport. But it’s our job to push the boundaries and say: ‘Can we make something that’s good even better?’,” he added.
The two events where the idea was tested saw the number of no-jumps reduce to 13% but since the athletes were not on board, the idea has now been junked.
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