For long jumpers, no-jumps have always been a thorn in the road to dominance. And the blame was all on the narrow, 20cm take-off board. To fix recurring issues and reduce lost jumps, World Athletics introduced a new solution. But the athletes like Tara Davis-Woodhall and Carl Lewis pushed back. And their resistance has now forced the governing body to make a decisive call.

World Athletics’ proposed fix was the new take-off zone, a system introduced in February 2024 and tested at multiple meets over the past two years. Instead of a rigid take-off board, athletes would jump from a defined “zone,” allowing legal jumps as long as the foot landed anywhere inside it. The idea was meant to reduce fouls, improve accuracy, and make the event more appealing to spectators.

However, despite the data supporting the concept, the athletes’ response was overwhelmingly negative. And that was a fact that the World Athletics CEO, Jon Ridgeon, had to acknowledge. 

“The reality is the athletes do not want to embrace it. So we’re not going to do it.”

“You ultimately don’t go to war with your most important group of people… Even though I would argue we identified a problem, and found a viable solution, if the athletes don’t want it, fine, we drop it. But I don’t regret looking at that. I think that’s our job as the governing body.”

When the idea was first announced, Carl Lewis made fun of it, claiming that it was an April Fool’s joke. The two-time Olympic champion, Miltiadis Tentoglou even called it “dog s—” when he was asked about the new take-off board following his 2024 World Indoor Championships win. According to Davis-Woodhall, the new idea was going to “hurt the sport” more than its potential to make things grow. 

Later on, Lewis decided to explain why the change was insignificant. 

Carl Lewis explains why the World Athletics’ plan for the long jump is flawed

During one of his interviews with Athletics Weekly, the nine-time Olympic gold medalist weighed in on the new take-off zone. According to him, the new format would prevent the athletes from covering longer distances. And this would become a major hurdle for athletes trying to break records. Even though the new take-off zones managed to minimize fouls, there was a bigger problem.

“I think the bigger issue is when they are really coming down to what they want to do and which to me is a little bit concerning, is I just think that they decided that jumpers are not going to jump far enough anymore,” Lewis claimed. “I’m just being honest, the fouling situation they mentioned has not truly changed that much, and the only thing that has changed is the distances.”

He further asserted that the long jumps were far more competitive 25-35 years ago. Things weren’t getting better, according to Lewis. They were simply becoming more technical. 

“We are dealing with genetics and as humans, we are not designed to jump high all the things that we do on air is to counteract the forward rotation as we know and that’s because your body is not designed to jump forward.”

Athletes would be forced to search for other ways to improve their jumps with a wider take-off board. Lewis even joked that people could move back to the middle and jump. The new format simply made no sense to him. 

In the end, the take-off zone may have promised fewer fouls, but it couldn’t overcome unified athlete resistance. World Athletics’ decision to scrap the change reinforces one truth: it’s the athletes that matter. What do you make of the World Athletics’ rule reversal? Drop us your thoughts as a comment.