Wife was impressed by the long jump event clips. We saw Jess Ennis do 6m40, and then we saw Greg Rutherford do 8m31. I said to the wife, how does anyone jump more than 6 metres. Wife being a woman asked how far that is really. It just so happens that I already had my tape measure handy. I told her to hold one end of it while she sat on the sofa and I backed off to the opposite side of the living room. She remarked, shocked, 'No way, nobody could jump the length of our living room'. I said 'that's not it, take the tape out of the room. She did, and as she stood in the hall, with the tape measure ran out of length. Wife remarked again, 'No way, that's impossible, nobody can jump that'. I then told her, my tape measure only goes to 5 metres. In effect, Jess Ennis could jump across our street. Greg Rutherford could do the same but starting in my front garden and landing in the opposite neighbour's front garden. That's just crazy. How do does anyone tune a human body to do that at all, never mind getting it to do it on demand without breaking.
I am going to measure out the 2 distances in the garden later today for the GK's. I last did this when Bob Beaman produced a WR monster jump in the 1968 Olympics . It is unreal when you measure them out. I bet everyone is scurrying round for their tapes now Dave !
