Sebastian Bayer nails his final attempt in the long jump to smash the competition record (© Getty Images)
Five months before the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Berlin, Germany (15 – 23 August 2009) the host nation has suddenly found a new athletics star.
Sebastian Bayer’s breathtaking performance at the European Indoor Championships on Sunday (8) came totally out of the blue and was not something anyone expected least the athlete himself.
Bayer’s jump in Turin was amongst the final action of the whole championship, and his performance he managed to conclude the European Indoors with the biggest sensation of its three days. The 22-year-old from Bremen in northern Germany jumped to a European indoor record of 8.71m, just missing the World indoor record of athletics legend Carl Lewis by eight centimetres.
When asked by journalists in the Mixed Zone if he knew where the World record stood he said ‘no’.
When told about the mark of 8.79m, which Carl Lewis jumped three years before Sebastian Bayer was born, the German said with a sense of humour - “That is a pity that I missed it!”
But in reality Bayer had never expected to jump anywhere that far as he did in Turin, when he achieved the world’s second best ever indoor result.
“Honestly I can not tell you how I did it. I hit the board very well with some perfectly shorter strides before taking off. The jump felt simply perfect. When I landed I knew it was a long one, but I had hoped for may be 8.30 or perhaps 8.40 metres. When 8.71 flashed up at the scoreboard I was speechless.”
In the first moments afterwards many German journalists on the press tribune thought that there would be a correction soon after and the last two figures would be reversed and that it would have been 8.17 (by coincidence this was the personal best with which Bayer had travelled to Turin).
But then Bayer’s jump was shown on the TV screens and there was no further doubt, he had jumped BIG!.
European record - ‘Oh, well, that is a bit too far for me today’!!!!
Bayer had already won the competition with an 8.29m first round jump, which was good enough to break the 20-year-old German indoor record of Dietmar Haaf by four centimetres.
“The run-up and the setting of the Long Jump pit were very good in Turin. We had seen this a day before when the women’s Long Jump produced good results as well. I was relaxed before my jump, because I had already won. Additionally I got some extra adrenalin, because the German anthem was played for Ariane Friedrich shortly before I jumped.”
“I had thought that may be in future 8.50 would be possible for me, but I did not think of something like this (8.71),” said Bayer, who produced one of Germany’s best moments in recent athletics history. Thinking back of a similar upset of the international scene something that crosses one’s mind is Nils Schumann’s spectacular Olympic 800m victory in Sydney 2000.
Asked if had known about the European record Bayer once more said: “No.” But then he added: “After I had jumped 8.29 metres in the opening round I asked Nils Winter (who won a silver in that competition with a PB of 8.22m and made it a German medal double) about the continental record. When he replied it would be 8.56 metres I answered: ‘Oh, well, that is a bit too far for me today’.”
But in the last round he made it possible and improved Spain’s Yago Lamela’s ten year-old mark by 15 centimetres.
To add more statistics: No German has ever jumped that far. The national outdoor record still stands at 8.56m. With that result Lutz Dombrowski had won the Olympic gold back in 1980. Indoors and out combined, Bayer is now number eight in the world all-time list. This century so far only one athlete has jumped slightly further than the German: Olympic champion Irving Saladino of Panama leapt 8.73m last year.
All this made the Austrian paper ‘Kronenzeitung’ state in Monday’s edition –
“Sebastian Bayer is Germany’s Bob Beamon!”
That might be a bit too much of an honour at this stage, but there is an interesting parallel between the two: When Bob Beamon famously improved the World record to 8.90m at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City he was 22-years old – the same age Bayer is today.
“I cannot comment on the historic significance of my jump. It has to sink in yet. But, also regarding Nils’ (Winter) performance, this is great for German Long Jump,” said Bayer. After setting his continental record Beyer’s girlfriend Carolin Nytra – the hurdler who competes for the same club in Bremen – came running into the infield to congratulate him. Bayer recalled: “She cried and told me: You are crazy!”
Background
Sebastian Bayer was born on 11 June 1986 in Aachen. While he later competed for clubs SC Neubrandenburg and Bayer Leverkusen and now for Bremer LT his coach Joachim Schulz always remained in Aachen. “I get the training schedules from him and it works fine,” said Bayer, who has support during training in Bremen as well.
Bayer had won one international medal as a junior in 2005: In Kaunas, Lithuania he took the European silver, but suffered a severe injury during this competition, when he slipped on the board. His middle foot bone was broken at three points and he ruptured two ligaments in his foot.
“A lot of those who saw that said that they would be surprised if I would be able to walk properly after this,” Bayer recalls.
His foot was stabilized with a number of screws and plates. But it did not go well in training afterwards so he decided to have all of them taken out again after half a year.
Bayer explained that after the injury it was hard at first to run full speed towards the landing area and then jump. But in 2006 he came back with a personal best of 7.95m and won the German outdoor title for the first time. He won this championship again last year and qualified for the Olympics. But in Beijing he missed the final with 7.77m. While he had improved to 8.15m in 2008 outdoors he only jumped eight metres for the first time indoors this season.
Germany’s Berlin hope
Bayer, who is a member of the sports division of the German army, had recently been quoted by athletics magazine ‘Leichtathletik’ saying: “It is possible to become immortal at the World Championships in Berlin.”
Asked about ‘Berlin 2009’, after the European record in Turin, Bayer did not want to lift expectations too high -
“My goal remains to reach the final in Berlin. Now I will have to confirm my performance outdoors. But if I jump 40 centimetres less in the summer than I will still have reached my goal.”
But he also said: “I will have to speak with my coach first before may be setting new goals.”
One big target he had also mentioned earlier in ‘Leichtathletik’, are the London Olympic Games.
Jörg Wenig for the IAAF
