A great long jump competition in Monaco

This year’s Diamond League season has marked the return of Miltiadis Tentoglou to the top of the men’s long jump hierarchy. His sixth-place finish at the World Indoor Championships in March had raised legitimate doubts: would 2026 extend the disappointing trajectory of 2025? That concern was not unfounded. The 2025 season had indeed been a poor one by his standards. It began with a fifth-place finish at the World Indoors and, despite a world-leading 8.46 m at the European Athletics Team Championships, the rest of the season steadily deteriorated, culminating in sixth place at the Diamond League Final and a disappointing eleventh at the World Championships. The contrast with 2026 could hardly be sharper. Tentoglou opened with 8.46 m in Xiamen, followed by 8.49 m in Cyprus, another world-leading mark at the time (later surpassed by Simon Ehammer’s remarkable 8.51 m in his decathlon world best at Götzis). A sequence of high-level performances followed, including a wind-assisted 8.54 m in June.

Then came Monaco.

Tentoglou produced a performance that reasserted his dominance unequivocally. He opened with 8.44 m, already sufficient for victory, followed with 8.52 m and 8.49 m, and concluded with a final-round leap of 8.61 m, a meeting record, surpassing Iván Pedroso’s longstanding mark, and improving his own world lead.

The competition itself reached an extraordinary level of depth. All eight athletes exceeded 8 metres, including Mattia Furlani on his return from injury. More strikingly, this was the first recorded competition in which five athletes surpassed 8.30 m.

This naturally raised a historical question: how often have all eight finalists in a major competition exceeded 8 metres?

The most immediate example is the Paris 2024 Olympic final. Tentoglou won with 8.48 m, ahead of Wayne Pinnock (8.36 m) and Mattia Furlani (8.34 m), with Ehammer fourth at 8.20 m, all four present again in Monaco. The eighth-place finisher, Jianan Wang, recorded 8.03 m. The same benchmark had been reached in earlier Olympic finals: in Rio 2016, K. Gomis placed eighth with 8.05 m, and in Sydney 2000,  the eighth-place mark was exactly 8.00 m. Turning to the World Championships, one might expect the iconic 1991 Tokyo final, defined by the Powell–Lewis duel, to qualify. Surprisingly, it does not: the eighth-place mark there was 7.99 m. Instead, the deepest competition appears to be the 1987 World Championships in Rome, where no fewer than twelve athletes exceeded 8 metres. King Carl won with a championship record of 8.67 m (a record that would not survive the following championships), while eighth place required 8.10 m and twelfth exactly 8.00 m.

Yet this competition is remembered less for its depth than for the controversy that unfolded in its final moments. Lewis had led from the outset with 8.67 m, with Robert Emmiyan second at 8.53 m. Larry Myricks held third with 8.33 m after five rounds, while Giovanni Evangelisti was fourth with 8.19 m. Then, in the final round, Evangelisti was credited with 8.38 m, moving him into the bronze medal position.

The result was immediately met with disbelief. Evangelisti was a top-class athlete, he had jumped 8.43 m earlier that season and had been Olympic bronze medallist in 1984, but analysis of the available video footage suggests that his final jump was not even beyond 8 metres, with estimates placing it closer to 7.90 m. Myricks was unable to respond. Subsequent analysis from the Sports Institute in Köln even suggested that the final jumps of both Myricks and Jefferson may have been longer than officially recorded.

Protests followed, and investigations were conducted. The IAAF maintained that all measurements were correct, stating that “it is not possible to consider the hypothesis of different measurements, carried out at a later date, as integral to or substitute for the official measuring process”.

However, the matter did not end there. Sandro Donati, then a coach with the Italian national team, filed a police report alleging that officials from the Italian federation (FIDAL) had arranged for Evangelisti to secure a medal. According to Donati, immediately before the final round the two British technicians responsible for the electronic measuring system were reassigned to the pole vault, and the system was disconnected. All final-round jumps were then measured manually, with only Italian officials present. An inquiry by the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) ultimately supported Donati’s claims. Eight FIDAL officials were implicated, including the federation’s general secretary, a close associate of IAAF president Primo Nebiolo. Evangelisti’s mark was annulled, and Myricks was reinstated as bronze medallist. Donati, however, paid a professional price, losing his coaching position after bringing the matter to light.

I have previously written about the disgraceful conduct of Soviet officials during the triple jump at the 1980 Olympic Games. The events in Rome in 1987 suggest that such practices were not an isolated phenomenon. On the contrary, the actions of FIDAL officials show that this readiness to subvert competition extended well beyond the Soviet sphere.

Once again, I find myself writing about Athletics Podium

This is not the first time I have highlighted this excellent site. I first introduced it in 2022, and returned to it in 2023 following their article on the African Games. Earlier this year, I discussed their “best of the best of 2025” list—an original and refreshing approach that did not follow the usual World Athletics classification of track, field, and out-of-stadium events, nor my own method of listing the ten best athletes of each sex.

I had been planning yet another article simply encouraging regular visits to this remarkable site—one that, among my recommendations, is second only to the unique Décapassion, which speaks not only to my intellect but also to my heart, and which is curated by the Goussets, who over the years have become close friends.

In my article on the Balkan Games, I mentioned the excellent statistical booklet Athletics Podium prepared for the 2024 Balkaniad. This time, I intended to present their newly published first volume of African Athletics, authored by S. Erbay, the editor-in-chief of Athletics Podium. It is an impressive compilation of the top ten performances in every discipline over more than half a century, from 1970 to 2025. This first volume covers men’s events; it is reasonable to expect that a second volume devoted to women’s results will follow.

However, I kept postponing writing this piece—until a recent publication finally prompted me into action. The article announced the Pan American Athletics Championships, held at the end of June in Medellín, Colombia. As an athletics enthusiast, I naturally follow the websites of World Athletics and European Athletics on a daily basis. The situation is more complex when it comes to the Americas. There is no single continental federation comparable to European Athletics. Instead, countries are divided between NACAC (North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletics Association) and Atletismo Sudamericano (the South American confederation). Their websites do not offer the same level of regular updates, and as a result I tend not to follow American regional competitions closely, knowing mainly those athletes who appear frequently on the global circuit. (On the other hand, Panamerican Sports is a well organised multisports organisation, with an active web site, where Athletics hold a place of honour).

I was particularly impressed that Athletics Podium provided timely and detailed coverage of these championships, offering a valuable and focused perspective. After the competition, they published a thorough review of what appears to have been the inaugural edition of these championships. I will not go into details about the event here. If you are interested—and you should be—I encourage you to visit Athletics Podium and read their coverage. While there, take the time to explore their other articles; I am confident you will quickly become a regular reader.

PS. If you wish to keep up with results such as those from Medellín, there is an excellent solution: subscribe to C. Baronet’s newsletter. It is free, and each week you receive a compilation of athletics results from around the world. The Panamerican championships, for example, were included in the fourth issue of the June newsletter. A glance through the results reveals occasional appearances by U.S. athletes—unsurprising, as the United States is a member of NACAC and eligible to compete. They typically send a B- or even C-level team. In Medellín managed to secure a few medals, albeit none of them gold.

The First Call for the Revival of the Olympics (part 2 of "the real story of the Olympics")

In 393 AD, Emperor Theodosius I issued an edict putting an end to pagan festivals. As a consequence, the Olympics, dedicated to Zeus and intertwined with sacrificial rites and festivities, could no longer be held. Modern archaeological evidence suggests that the Games may have lingered into the 5th century, yet they were already in decline, and Theodosius’ decree merely drove another nail into their coffin.

The ancient Greek ideal of the body could not survive within a Christian empire. Christianity focused on the salvation of the soul, often to the neglect of the body, and anything associated with physical display or competition was viewed with suspicion. As a result, athletic pursuits faded through the Middle Ages. Although the Renaissance revived an appreciation for the human body and its beauty, it took time before sport regained social acceptance and began to develop again.

The Byzantine Empire rose and fell, its capital, Constantinople, ultimately falling to the Ottomans in 1453. The Ottoman Empire, which encompassed all of Greece, rose in power but was already in decline by the 19th century. In 1821, a revolution succeeded in liberating part of Greece from the Ottoman rule, giving birth to the modern Greek state. (The term 'modern' is used here merely to distinguish it from ancient Greece). Internal strife—long a national spécialité—led European powers to conclude that the Greeks were incapable of self-government. Consequently, they imported a Bavarian prince, Otto, to serve as the first king of Greece. During this period, poets and writers sought to inspire the population with renewed self-confidence by invoking the nation’s glorious classical past.

It was in this spirit that, in 1833, Panagiotis Soutsos, a Constantinople-born poet, politician, and journalist, published his poem Νεκρικός Διάλογος (Dialogue of the Dead).

In his poem, Soutsos presents the ghost of Plato addressing the modern Greeks, particularly the ministers of the throne, urging them to renounce their internal quarrels and divisions.

…Wretched people, think what your Greece once was!

Can you tell me, where are your ancient centuries?

Where are your beautiful Olympic contests?

Where are your Panathenaea?

Your great ceremonies, your great theatres?…  

This work was the first reference for the revival of the ancient Olympic Games, as part of the revival of the ancient Greek tradition.

Panagiotis Soutsos did not content himself merely with a poetic expression but took active steps toward the realization of these ideas. In 1834, he had the opportunity to promote his proposals in the form of a memorandum to the Minister of the Interior, Ioannis Kolettis, who, in turn, presented them to King Otto as his own. In the proposal he suggested that March 25th, the anniversary of the outbreak of the Greek war of independence, should be declared a national holiday and included thoughts on organizing grand festivals modeled on the Panhellenic Games of antiquity (the Olympic Games, the Isthmian, the Pythian, and the Nemean). The concluding lines of the memorandum referred to the splendour of the ancient Greek contests and to the essential reasons for their revival. The idea of marking March 25 as national holiday was approved, but the Olympic revival plans stalemated.

The memo failed to revive the Games. Yet it may have inspired a law passed in 1837 under King Otto, which called for a national festival featuring competitions in three categories: agriculture, industry, and the athletic games of ancient Greece: “discus, javelin, long jump, footraces, wrestling, and chariot racing” (though notably without the term 'Olympic'). Otto’s national festival, however, was never realized. On March 25, 1838, the inhabitants of the village Ag. Ioannis (ancient Letrina) near ancient Olympia, proposed to revive the Olympic Games on that very site. They envisioned holding the celebration every four years on March 25. This proposal, too, came to nothing. Seven years later, in 1845, Panagiotis Soutsos once again advocated for the Olympic revival in a public speech, but still without success.

The ideas of Soutsos would inspire both the people and later advocates of the revival. Dimitrios Vikelas characteristically notes that the notebooks containing Soutsos’s verses circulated from hand to hand and had a great influence on public opinion. 

The most direct recipient and continuer of Soutsos’s efforts, however, would be Evangelis Zappas. But this will be the subject of the next post.