Short answers, pulled from the story.
The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point into a sand pit. Along with the triple jump it is one of the two horizontal jumps.
The long jump has been a modern Olympic event for men since the first Games in 1896 and for women since 1948. It also has a history in the ancient Olympic Games as the only known jumping event of the original pentathlon.
Mike Powell of the United States holds the men's long jump world record, set on the 30th of August 1991 at the World Championships in Tokyo. He set it in a showdown against Carl Lewis, whose longer jump that day was wind-assisted and not legal for record purposes.
Galina Chistyakova of the former Soviet Union holds the women's long jump world record, which she set in Leningrad on the 11th of June 1988. It has stood longer than any other long jump world record held by men or women.
Halteres were weights carried in each hand by ancient Greek long jumpers, weighing between 1 and 4.5 kg. Athletes swung them forward to increase momentum and held them throughout the jump, swinging them down and back at the end to shift the center of gravity.
World Athletics tested a 40 centimetre take-off zone beginning in the 2025 indoor season to reduce invalid attempts, which had reached around 30 percent. On the 5th of December 2025, World Athletics announced the testing phase was complete and the reform had been ditched.
The distance is measured perpendicular from the foul line to the nearest break in the sand caused by any part of the body or uniform. If any part of the foot passes the foul line the jump is a foul and no distance is recorded, and the maximum accepted wind assistance for records is 2 m/s.