Long Jump, Women

Germany’s Malaika Mihambo was the defending gold medalist and had been the dominant long jumper since Tokyo. She was world ranked #1 every year from 2018-22 and had won the 2019 and 2022 World Championships, sitting out the 2023 Worlds due to a thigh injury.

Her biggest competitor was expected to be American Tara Davis-Woodhall, the 2024 World Indoor Champion and silver medalist at the 2023 World Championships. Her teammate, Jasmine Moore, had already competed in the triple jump in Paris, winning a bronze medal in that event three days before this event started.

Davis-Woodhall led the qualifying with 6.90 metres, followed by Italy’s Larissa Iapichino at 6.87, and then Mihambo at 6.86. Moore also got through to the final with a jump of 6.66, good for sixth place.

Moore took the early lead in the final, clearing 6.96 in round one, but she would never better that mark, eventually adding long jump bronze to her triple jump medal. Davis-Woodhall took over in round two with 7.05 metres, a mark good enough for the gold medal, although she would surpass that in round four with 7.10 metres. Mihambo cleared 6.95 metres in round three to move into third, and then in round five jumped 6.98 metres to take the silver medal.

Moore’s feat of winning medals in the long and triple jumps at the same Olympics had been done once before by women, as in 2004 Tatyana Lebedeva won long jump gold and triple jump bronze. Inessa Kravets also won medals in both events, but not in the same year, taking triple jump gold in 1996 and long jump silver in 1992.

Among the men, six athletes had done this seven times, with the United States’ Meyer Prinstein uniquely winning medals in both events in 1900 and 1904, with golds in both events in 1904. However, it had not been done by a man since 1936, when Japan’s Naoto Tajima won triple jump gold and long jump bronze.