36 YEARS and counting!!!✨ The current WORLD RECORD HOLDER comes in no.3 ALL-TIME…🔥👇
In an age where FOUR Women surpassed the 7.40m barrier, it is testament to the size of CHISTYAKOVA’s 7.52m [+1.4 m/s] leap that it has now stood unbeaten as the Women’s Long Jump WORLD RECORD since 1988! ✊
With her somewhat ungainly runway approach, once at take-off, her height was something to behold – in all, she bettered 7.20m in SEVEN straight seasons from 1984-1990 [7.29m | 7.28m | 7.34m | 7.27m | 7.52m | 7.30m | 7.35m]!!!💥
Relatively, Global medals were harder to come by for CHISTYAKOVA, such was the depth of Women’s Long Jumping during the 1980s-1990s, however, she did win the Indoor World Championships [1989] and an Olympic Bronze in an absolutely stacked 1988 Olympic Long Jump Final with 7.11m [a distance that would have been good enough to win in the Paris Olympics last year!] – in the 1988 Final, incredibly, 7.04m wasn’t even far enough for Yelena Belevskaya to win a medal!🤯
A flirtation with Triple Jump, before it became a fully established event on the Women’s programme, yielded a 14.52m jump in 1989; a would-be World Record at the time [PB of 14.76m in 1995], plus a European Indoor Gold, as well as representation for Slovakia following the dissolution of the Soviet Union…🇸🇰
