Back in 2015, I wrote a post about the all-time best long jumps and Carl Lewis as a jumper. This is a quick update to see how the situation has evolved in the last decade.
For that purpose I use the website “Track and Field all-time Performances” (maintained since years ago by Peter Larsson).
With the data of all-time men’s long jump I plotted the chart below with the best 2,823 jumps (jumps from 8.20m and longer) and their dates, highlighting the jumps made by Carl Lewis, Mike Powell, Bob Beamon, Larry Myricks and Ivan Pedroso (only taking into account “legal” jumps, i.e., those with tail winds of a maximum 2.0 m/s).
The first quick fact is that in the past 10 years there have been 587 just long jumps, added to the 2,236 that had been achieved earlier.
Carl Lewis retired in 1997. His last great competition was the Olympic Games of Atlanta in 1996 (where, by the way, he collected a gold medal with a 8.50m jump at age 35).
Now, in February 2026, 28 years later, of the best 214 long jumps ever (all those at or above 8.50m), 55 of those jumps (a 25.7%) correspond to Carl Lewis. I’ll let you qualify the feat.
That was Carl Lewis the jumper.
Some more comments after looking at the chart:
- Carl Lewis holds 127 of the 2,823 jumps (4.5%) at 8.20m and longer
- Larry Myricks holds 230 of the 2,823 jumps (8.1%) at 8.20m and longer
- Mike Powell 157 of the 2,823 jumps (5.6%) at 8.20m and longer
- Ivan Pedroso 147 of the 2,823 jumps (5.2%) at 8.20m and longer
- Other notable athletes in the event were Bob Beamon (with just 4 jumps over 8.20 but one of them 8.90m, achieved in Mexico City in 1968, world record for over 22 years), Robert Emmiyan (31 such jumps and 8.86m, the 4th best ever jump), Dwight Phillips (95 such jumps and a best of 8.74m), Erick Walder (53 jumps and 8.74m as best one), Irvin Saladino (62 and 8.73m), James Beckford (133 and 8.62m), Luvo Manyonga (83 and 8.65m), Miltiadis Tentoglou (73 and 8.65m)…
Now let’s look at those jumps of 8.60m or longer (best 79 jumps ever):
- Only 16 athletes ever jumped that long
- Carl Lewis holds 30 of the 79 jumps (38%) at 8.60m and longer
- Ivan Pedroso holds 9 of the 79 jumps (11.4%) at 8.60m and longer
- Mike Powell holds 7 of the 79 jumps (8.9%) at 8.60m and longer
- Dwight Phillips, Larry Myricks and Luvo Manyonga hold each of them 5 of the 79 jumps (6.3%) at 8.60m and longer
- The other 10 athletes hold 3 such jumps or less
To put into perspective the long jumps of the 1980s and 1990s:
- The gold medal in the last World championship in Tokyo 2025 was won by Mattia Furlani with 8.39m
- The gold medal in the last Olympic Games in Paris 2024 was won by Miltiadis Tentoglou with 8.48m
- The best jumps in the last two years were: 8.46m in 2025 and 8.65m (twice), all by Tentoglou
I believe it would be interesting to share again the Tokyo World Championship long jump competition of 1991, when Mike Powell managed to set a new long jump world record (8.95m), 22 years after Bob Beamon had set the previous one in Mexico City (8.90). Find the explanation from the Wikipedia here. Despite losing it, Carl Lewis managed the following four jumps in that competition: 8.91 (wind aided, therefore it doesn’t count for world record and best ever jumps), 8.87, 8.84, 8.68 and 8.56. The first 3 jumps would have won any competition in history except 3, including the two world records referred. Unluckily for Lewis, these jumps got him only a silver medal.
See that competition here:
Finally, I find it interesting to see that since 1991 there hasn’t been any jump beyond 8.75m (20cm less than the record), only two jumps beyond 8.70.
I plotted the chart below showing the numbers of jumps at and given distance per decade, with the cut off reference year in 1991.
I also compiled in this table the number of jumps beyond 8.20 per decade and the number of different athletes jumping beyond that distance.
We see that from the 1970s to the 1980s there was a great increase in the number of long jumps beyond 8.20 (x6) and also in the number of athletes (x3) achieving those jumps.
After the peak performance in the summer of 1991 with the new world record in the competition described above, in the rest of the 1990s the number of those long jumps continued to increase (+32%) as well as the number of athletes jumping beyond 8.20m (+38%), however the peak performance wasn’t there anymore. The floor was higher, but the tail of the curve was shorter.
In the following two decades, 2000s and 2010s, the trend reversed. The volume of jumps beyond 8.20m decreased to the 1980s level, though spread over more athletes and without the peak performances of the 1980s through 1991.
And that is explained because as mentioned above Carl Lewis holds 30 of the 79 jumps (38%) at 8.60m and longer, he was the driving force of the peak performances of the 1980s.
The Blog by Javier 