The big name in Spanish athletics the year that just ended is that of the Olympic champion Jordan Díaz, who to win the European championship in June, in Rome, had to jump 18.18m, the third longest legal triple jump in history, only 11 centimeters from the world record of Jonathan Edwards (18.29m), which in 2025, which has just begun, is already 30 years old. During a trip to Madrid in which he coincided with Hicham el Guerruj and Javier Sotomayor, two other athletes with unbeaten world records since the last decade of the 20th century, Edwards offered to reflect on the exceptional nature of records and the exceptional being that they become. to the athletes who beat them. “To do something better than anyone has ever done in their chosen profession is an incredible thing and one I never thought I could do because I am so different from the other triple jumpers. I am not tall, I am not an imposing figure. If I went out on the street now, no one would look at me twice thinking that I was a great athlete. So it’s been an incredible thing,” says Edwards, a 58-year-old Englishman from London, son of a Church of England vicar, and famous both for his refusal to compete on Sunday for a time for religious reasons and for his exploits in the triple jump.
Ask. He is not tall, he is not a closet or a force of nature, he does not belong to the Brazilian school or the Cuban school or the polka school or the Soviet school, and he jumps more than anyone else. Is it magic? Have you ever wondered why?
Answer.I jump differently. I think maybe Mike Conley [norteamericano, 17,87m, campeón olímpico en Barcelona] It was similar. It is a very fast and very flat jump. I think the key is how much I maintain speed after the hop [la primera batida]. In Gothenburg, in 1995, when I broke the record, the jump [el tercer impulso] It was very long, seven meters. That’s the big difference. There are people who can go further than me with the hop and the step [segundo paso]but they do not have the same speed when they enter the jump phase. My speed in the race and my ability to maintain that speed is what makes the difference. The reactivity of foot contact, the way my foot contacts the ground. I am very strong but also very light. I don’t know how much triple jumpers weigh now, but I would have weighed maybe 71 kilos, and even 70 kilos when I was jumping. But also very strong.
Q. The Spanish Jordan Díaz also maintains the speed, but he is 1.94m tall and will weigh four or five kilos more…
R. Maybe too much weight to stop and start again…
Q. Although the official record is 18.29m, that same 1995, a couple of months before, he jumped 18.43m in the European Cup, in Villeneuve d’Ascq, but it was not approved because the wind was blowing in favor at 2.4 meters per second… Did you feel something special inside you while you were flying? A vibe, a flow?
R. It was a total shock. That year he had already jumped well. I beat the British record at my first meeting in Loughborough by a centimeter [17,58m]where the conditions were not the best and I even fell short on the table. So I knew I was in good shape. Nobody believes 18.43 is possible, hahaha. It’s still the most incredible day of my career, because basically my personal best was 17.15m and then I jumped 18.15m. It is the most beautiful jump of my career. Different from Gothenburg. With a little more height and longer hop and step. I often wonder how far I would have jumped in Gothenburg if I had had the technique and the flow by Villeneuve d’Ascq. In Gothenburg I ran very, very fast and that’s why, because of the speed, the jump was flatter, the trajectory was flatter. They are quite different jumps, but visually, aesthetically, Villeneuve d’Ascq’s is incredible.
Q. Maybe he would feel like Bob Beamon must have felt after jumping 8.90m across the length of Mexico…
R. That was it, it was another stratosphere. Another story. When I looked at the distance, I remember all my competitors looking at me thinking, what happened? It’s not possible. It was. And I also jumped 18.39m that day in the fourth round in +3.7 wind. Even today I still think that if the wind had been 1.9 m/s [legal] I would still have jumped 18.43m. The wind difference is minimal. Null.
Q. In 1995 he achieved another jump of 18m and only one more later, in 1998, 18.01m, in Oslo. Is the triple jump so demanding that it is not possible to do more than half a dozen large jumps in a race?
R. I believe two things. The first is that my technique was exceptional in 1995. And the changes I achieved in 1995, I was not able to repeat in the following years. So I think technique had a lot to do with it. I also think I got faster and stronger after 1995, but I wasn’t able to make that work for me technically, so I think yeah, it was technique and the fact that maybe I was faster and stronger. which made it not possible for me to do the same technique. Ultimately, 1995 was the sweet spot between my physical condition and my technical ability.
Q. The person who came closest to his record, Christian Taylor (18.21m), tore both Achilles tendons, and Jordan Díaz (18.18m) always explains that so much weight is unloaded on the leg in the first jump, the hop, it seems impossible not to break a leg or a foot…
R. I only suffered one injury in my career, to my ankle, which I had surgery for in 1998. It wasn’t a serious injury and it probably took me a year or a year and a half to recover. But I didn’t do many repetitions in training, because I always tried to protect my body. As a triple jumper I did much less than other athletes in terms of contact, and therefore my chance of injury was lower.
Q. Could it be assumed that he achieved a certain balance in his body between strength and sensitivity, power and speed?
R. One of the keys to having a long race is understanding your body, and understanding how it works to protect it, not training too much, knowing when to push a little harder. But I think it’s one of the things you learn. As an athlete, as you mature, you must learn to take care of your body and get the most out of it.
Q. I remember that Teddy Tamgho approached you in 2009, during the European Indoor Championships in Turin, and said, you don’t know me, Mr. Edwards, but I’m 19 years old and I’m going to beat your record… He jumped 18, 04m in 2015, but he was injured later and never returned…
R. And he was very talented. Tamgho had the chance to break the record, I think, because of the tremendous emotion with which he behaved in the jumping hall. He could almost create something out of nothing. He was an incredible jumper. But yes, injury. And, now, if you look at Jaydon Hibbert, he is only 19 years old and has already been injured in two championships. Last year he didn’t jump at the World Championships and this year he was injured in Paris.
Q. Looking back, what changed your life the most? The world record or the Olympic gold in Sydney?
R. The world record was the most important thing for me, without a doubt, being the first person to exceed 18 meters and 60 feet. [la barrera en Norteamérica, 18,29m]. The fundamental thing in athletics is how far you jump, how fast you run, how far you throw. It is a sport in which everything is measurable. Many people can win Olympic gold medals but not as many can break world records. There is something unique by definition about a world record that makes it the pinnacle of the sport.
Q. Isn’t it hard, stressful, to live with that notion for 30 years, thinking I’m the one who jumps the most? Maybe you want to be beaten once and for all and take that burden off…
R. Not really, but in a way the sport should evolve. You could argue that records should not last 30 years, with all the changes in technology and sports science, nutrition, shoes, which has already been seen with the women’s marathon record, crazy times, which has to do both with technology and with the athlete, And here we have Sotomayor’s [2,45m en altura]Hicham’s [3m 26s en 1.500m]. Yes, for the sport to be healthy and progress, these records should be broken.
Q. In 2024 there was great equality between several jumpers who are around or over the 18m barrier, Jordan, Pichardo, Zango, Andy Díaz, Jaydon Hibbert… Some of them, like Jordan (23 years old) or Hibbert (19), are very young. Do you feel like the end of your record is approaching?
R. There is, indeed, a group of very strong athletes, so it is possible that they can push each other to even greater distances, so we will see…
Q. Are you prepared to wake up one day knowing that you are not unique?
R. No. I mean, it will be sad but it won’t change my life. My life already changed when I beat it.
Q. Why do you think athletics continues to be the king sport in the Olympic Games. In Paris the stadium was packed 10 hours a day… Maybe it transmits emotions that other sports cannot?
R. Athletics is always very popular at the Olympic Games and World Championships, but struggles outside of those events. Many things have to change in the sport for it to continue to prosper. There aren’t many athletes who make money. World Athletics trusted Usain Bolt too much because Usain Bolt took athletics for a whole decade and they thought everything was fine and in fact now we see that is not the case.
Q. There are innovations, right? Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam, the World Athletics Ultimate…
R. But it’s a shame that Michael Johnson’s initiative doesn’t include competitions, especially when the sport’s biggest star is a pole vaulter. Duplantis is without a doubt the most incredible athlete today, and most people don’t know who the sprinters are today, who Lyles is, no idea, not to mention the other sprinters, who knows who Fred Kerley is, who knows who It’s Marcel Jacobs outside of athletics, nobody. And yet everyone knows Usain Bolt. People will know Duplantis, why do they know Duplantis? Because he breaks the world record every time he jumps. I don’t think you can ignore the fact that records are important in athletics. Rivalries are good. If you have a rivalry and they don’t run very fast, no one cares. There are many things that must change. The Diamond League structure has not been very useful for the sport. Televisions are not interested. And other sports have become much more popular, much more professional. So if you were a talented young person, an athlete, maybe you wouldn’t choose athletics. I would choose football, rugby… If you do athletics you won’t become a millionaire like a footballer.
Q. Did you not regret having been an athlete?
R. I don’t know if I would have had talent for another sport. Although I play a lot of golf now. I have a lot of fun, although mentally it is a very hard sport. But look at the money made in golf compared to athletics….
