From Jesse Owens to Bob Beamon to Carl Lewis and many others, Americans have been dominant in the men’s long jump at the Summer Olympics. However, on Tuesday night, there were no American competitors in the final of this event.
Here’s how rare this is: The only other time the U.S. was completely absent from the final in a non-boycotted Olympics was in 2008. Otherwise, the U.S. has always had at least one participant in the final and has often won, taking the gold about 75% of the time.
Carl Lewis alone won four consecutive gold medals in the long jump — at Los Angeles in 1984, Seoul in 1988, Barcelona in 1992, and Atlanta in 1996. Looking at past results, Americans won 22 out of the 29 gold medals awarded in this event at previous Olympics.
Until Miltiadis Tentoglou from Greece won his second gold medal on Tuesday night, Britain was the only other country besides the U.S. to have won two gold medals in the long jump.
American male long jumpers had Olympic titles at 13 of the first 14 Games, including Jesse Owens’ win in Berlin in 1936.
Beamon still holds the Olympic record from his gold medal performance at Mexico City in 1968. Mike Powell set the world record in 1991 and won silver behind Lewis as part of a podium sweep for the U.S. the following year.
This time, however, there were no American athletes making the jump on the purple track and into the sand pit.
None of the three U.S. competitors — Jeremiah Davis, who won the country’s Olympic trials in June, Malcolm Clemons, or Jarrion Lawson — made it past the qualifying rounds on Sunday. Lawson failed all three of his jumps, while Davis and Clemons did not jump far enough.
Carl Lewis responded to a post on social media about the lack of American representation in the final with a GIF and the caption: “I don’t know what to say.”
