In what is widely considered the greatest individual physical feat in human competition, 24 year-old, New Yorker Bob Beamon obliterated an Olympic/World Record in the long jump by a mind-bending two feet. Fellow American, Ralph Boston established the record years before at 27 feet, 43/4 inches, and it was Boston who coached Beamon through his record leap after he had failed to even qualify for a gold metal in two previous jumps. As the Mexico City crowd watched in stunned awe, Beamon tossed his 6-foot-3, 160-pound 8.90 meters -- 29 feet, 21/2 inches for the most lopsided destruction of a world record ever; a record that stood until Mike Powell leaped 2 inches farther at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo. Two inches, not two feet!
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