World Athletics rules out takeoff zone

The governing body has decided to withdraw the proposal to implement this type of platform in the long jump after two years of trials and a majority rejection from athletes, as its CEO Jon Ridgeon confirmed this week to The Guardian.

The measure, which sought to replace the traditional platform with a 40?centimetre space where the measurement would be taken from the exact point at which the foot leaves the ground, had been announced in February 2024 and tested at several competitions. The intention was to reduce the number of invalid jumps, which at international championships hover around a third of attempts, and to enliven the spectacle for the public, often frustrated by the accumulation of fouls. However, the project soon met immediate resistance among the leading figures in the discipline. “You ultimately do not want to go to war with your most important group of people,” Ridgeon told the British newspaper.

From the outset, leading voices such as four?time Olympic champion Carl Lewis rejected the proposal outright. Lewis dismissed it wryly, saying on social media, “You’re supposed to wait until April 1st for April Fools,” a line that quickly became one of the emblems of the general backlash. Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou called the idea ‘dog shit’ during the 2024 World Indoor Championships, and the American Tara Davis?Woodhall said on the podcast Out Of The Blocks that “I don’t see how it’s going to grow the sport at all. I think it’s actually going to hurt the sport more than it’s going to grow anything.”

Despite the pushback, World Athletics insisted on exploring the proposal. As Ridgeon explained to The Guardian, the trials yielded encouraging data: at two events, the rate of invalid jumps fell to 13%, and fans showed a positive reaction to a more fluid pace and fewer interruptions. “From the emotional reaction of the crowd, they lose energy with no-jumps,” commented the executive, arguing that the organisation had an obligation to study ways to improve the competitive experience. “We would be accused of being asleep at the wheel if we didn’t look for weaknesses,” he added.

For Ridgeon, the key was to innovate without breaking the technical essence of the long jump. In conversation with The Guardian, he insisted that “The athletes do not want to embrace it. 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.” What mattered, in his view, was not to stop exploring alternatives. “It’s our job to push the boundaries and say: ‘Can we make something that’s good even better?'”

Although the reform has been ruled out indefinitely, World Athletics maintains that it will continue to look for ways to streamline the event. Ridgeon explained to The Guardian that “we were looking at four or five things to improve and speed up the long jump. They include simple things like getting the officials to rake the pit quicker. We’re also working with [the watch manufacturer] Seiko to create a concept called instant results. When you land in a sandpit at the moment it might take up to 20 seconds to get the result. We’re working on less than five seconds.”

The idea behind the reform was that it would significantly reduce the risk of invalid jumps, but critics argued it removed the essential technical risk of long jump: correctly judging the sprint down the runway before hitting the fixed board. “Takeoff zones may be considered for completely new and different event types in the future but nothing is in formal planning at this point,” explained a federation spokesperson to AFP.

The debate, meanwhile, exposes the tension between tradition and innovation in a historic discipline. The long jump will keep the traditional platform intact and the technical thrill that so many athletes consider non?negotiable. World Athletics insists it does not regret having opened the discussion and promises to continue exploring improvements that do not clash with the athletes. -Insidethegames

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