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Bob
Beamon
October 18, 1968 is the day remembered the most by the people who attended the 1968 Olympics. This is due to possibly the greatest performance  ever, until that time, which was an achievement of the American athlete in the long jump, Bob Beamon. Indeed, never until that day had a world record been broken with such a big difference.
Beamon was born in New York in August 1946. He was a swift runner in the sprints and an even better long jumper. However, he lacked technique and as a result he was unstable in his performances, but he always had the ability to perform very long jumps. Before the beginning of the 1968 Olympics, he was considered one of the three or four favourites for the gold medal, but no-one imagined that his victory would be coupled with an epoch-making performance. When Beamon performed the historic jump of 8.90 metres, even the judges of the contest could not believe what they were seeing and as a result the jump was measured four times. In order to seize the success of this athlete, one must realize that in the early 20th century the best performance in the event was 7.62m and by 1968 it was 8.35m. The American jumper improved the latter record by 55 centimetres, whereas from the previous improvement of the performance 44 years had elapsed.
After the Mexico Olympics, Beamon returned to the University of Texas, in order to continue and finish his studies in sociology. He continued practising, without being able to even near his unbelievable performance. Many people maintained that he always competed under the weight of his achievement. He obtained a sociology diploma in 1972, but was not selected to participate in the Olympic team of his country for the Munich Olympics of that same year.
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