take flight – The German long jumper, crowned Wednesday evening at the Stade de France, dreams of beating Mike Powell’s legendary world record (8.95m) and being the first to reach the 9m mark
At the Stade de France,
In Markus Rehm’s world, you could call it a narrow victory. The legendary German long jumper jumped 8.13m on Wednesday night to add a fourth Paralympic title to his gigantic list of achievements, with “only” 34 centimetres of margin over his runner-up, the American Derreck Loccident (7.79m). Already in May, at the World Championships in Kobe, the latter had come close to 61 centimetres, while the Kaiser had been accustomed for ages to leaving the competition a good metre behind him.
A prodigious world record
Happy with this new gold medal, of course, Rehm did not hide after the competition that this performance had left him hungry. “I wanted more, the distance is not really what I hoped for, he answered us in the mixed zone of the Stade de France. I was aiming at least for the Paralympic record, we said that with my coach.”
This mark, set at 8.21m by himself (obviously) in Rio, he wanted to push it much further, just to ensure his legacy for a while longer, he who at 36 is not certain to be there in Los Angeles in 2028. More secretly, he doubtless aspired to take advantage of the window of(…) - 20minutes
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