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Would like to coach a top athlete now, says long jump legend Mike Powell
Mike Powell, the jump world record holder, rates Jesse Owens, Carl Lewis and Usain Bolt as the best three athletes of all time
Mike Powell is available to coach. Any takers?
The world record holder in the men’s long jump for over 26 years, Powell, 54, said in Kolkata on Thursday that he is looking for a great coaching opportunity. Honest enough to admit that wouldn’t want his world record jump of 8.95m to be broken, Powell said the next best thing would be if someone he coached bettered it.
To do that, they would need to ask questions, said Powell.
“I would talk to Bob Beamon (whose long jump best of 8.90m stood for 23 years before Powell broke it in 1991), talk to Carl Lewis even. But now, I only find people telling me they would break my record. Well, how? No one asks these days,” said Powell, the international brand ambassador for Sunday’s Tata Steel Kolkata 25k run.
South African Luvo Manyonga, 26, did the year’s longest four jumps, but his best was just 8.65m.
And though Powell’s effort in Tokyo hasn’t been bettered, the man, who attributed his long jump abilities to playing basketball as a boy, said he felt he was good to cross 9m. “I think I should have jumped 9.20 or 9.10 but after you become the world champion, things change. And I got older and had injuries.”
Lewis denied him the Olympic gold in 1988 and 1992 but Powell said they are friends now. “Earlier, I would go ‘grrrr’ every time I saw him but it is fun now. It makes me appreciate our rivalry.”
Powell said Usain Bolt, Jesse Owens and Lewis would be the top three athletes of all time. “If Bolt did long jump, he would have gone past 9m but you can’t deny what Lewis has achieved or Jesse Owens who broke four world records in an afternoon. They would be my top three of all time,” said Powell.
Powell said he isn’t too worried about athletics’ future now that Bolt has gone. “They said the same thing when Carl left and the same when Michael Johnson went. There will be someone though I hope there isn’t just one person who dominates the sport. In my time including Sergei Bubka, there were a few.”
Asked if he would trade his world record for an Olympic gold, Powell, who has two silver medals from 1988 and 1992, paused for a while before saying: “Well, I would ask Carl for three long jump gold and one 100m gold and then, maybe, I would offer to trade…. Ivan Pedroso did 8.96 in 1995 and I cried before it was declared wind-aided.”
The desire to hold the Masters’ world record too has been put on hold because Powell said “though I hate to admit it, I am getting old. It is tough on the body now, it hurts.”
For now, there are no targets; Powell said he simply trains to get into shape because he wants to be running and jumping into his 70s. And he is waiting to coach.
