Michael Steele/Getty Images for IAAF
Juan Miguel Echevarria nearly jumped out of the sandbox at the Diamond League meet in Stockholm on Saturday, producing the furthest jump in any conditions since 1995.
The 19-year-old Cuban jumped 8.83 meter (29 feet, 11.5 inches), which would have been the fifth-best of all time, but Echevarria jumped with 2.1 meters/second of wind at his back and the maximum allowed for record purposes is 2.0 meter/second.
Check it out below:
The jump is the furthest since Cuban Olympic Gold medalist Ivan Pedroso produced a controversial 8.96 meter jump in 1995. It would have beaten Mike Powell‘s world record from 1991 of 8.95 by one centimeter, but the wind mark was declared invalid because a person stood in front of the anemometer, thus intercepting the correct wind measurement.
Nonetheless, Echevarria won the world indoor long jumping title on March 2 and beat both Olympic champion Jeff Henderson from the U.S. and world outdoor champion Luvo Manyongaof South Africa, NBC Sports reports.
But most importantly, the Cuban teenager’s incredible jump prompted some incredible Twitter reactions…
Never change, internet.
[h/t NBC Sports]