BEIJING - Hot off of winning the Olympic 100 and 200 meter events, Jamaican Usain Bolt claimed another gold medal today by setting a new World Record in the long jump. His jump of 29' 10 inches broke Mike Powell's 27 year-old record by 5.5 inches, stunning observers, officials and jumpers who didn't even know Bolt was in the competition.
After the race, Bolt said he was hanging out in the infield watching some friends compete in other events, when he noticed a break between rounds in the long jump final.
"I thought, why not, wouldn't it be funny if I ran down there and tried it," he said. "I've never tried the long jump before, but I guess they're saying that I had a pretty good jump."
Officials were stunned by Bolt's jump, and initially refused to measure it until they realized it was near world record length. They later allowed the jump to count, despite Bolt not being entered in the competition or having qualified through the preliminaries, because "well, it's hard to deny the guy when he broke the world record."
US Track & Field officials saw their protest of the leap denied, leaving Trevell Quinley out of the medal race. Officials based their appeal on the lack of paperwork, the fact that he was still wearing his warm-up jacket and pants with sneakers, and that "it's totally unfair that he's hogging all the Gold medals."
Olympic great Carl Lewis has one of a handful of observers who praised Bolt's abilities, but questioned his showboating antics during his jump.
"I find it disrespectful that he decided to spread his arms and make noises like he was an airplane while he did his jump," Lewis said. "That denegrates all the hard work long jumpers put into their event. That, and the fact that he set a world record having never done it before."
For his part, Bolt said he was done with competitions after the 4 x 100 relay, "unless I can get into that marathon thing on Saturday. How hard could that be?"
