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In 1968 Lynn Davies, the 1964 Olympic Champion, leapt 8.23m. whilst
competing in Berne to improve his British long jump record. He may have
thought all looked set fair for him to have an outside chance of
retaining his Olympic title later that year in Mexico. Four years
earlier in Tokyo the teacher from Nantymoel, Glamorgan, had just
qualified on his last jump for the final and thus went in a fortunate
man - very fortunate as events turned out because the weather was very
"British" in Japan for the final. It was wet and windy and Davies took
full advantage, saving his winning leap to his fifth round when the wind
momentarily died down (he was placed third at that moment). He cleared
8.07m. (a then British record) to win the gold and was without doubt the
best man on the day.
In 1966 he also claimed a gold medal at the
European Championships, beating his great Soviet rival Igor
Ter-Ovanesyan (3rd in Tokyo) and took the Commonwealth title that same
year. But it was the Olympics that really mattered. However, he knew it
was the U.S.A. jumpers, Ralph Boston in particular (2nd in Tokyo), who
presented the biggest threat and he was right. This time, though, it was
the rarefied air of Mexico, not the wind and rain, that came to the aid
of the winner and that winner wasn't Boston (3rd) but one Bob Beaman.
The rest is history: Beamon soared over 29 feet with his first jump. Lynn was shell-shocked. Lynn failed to beat 8 metres and finished 9th. Just as Beamon's Olympic
record has lasted into this century so indeed did Davies' British record
and despite the shock of Mexico, Lynn was not destroyed by the
experience. At the following year's European Championships he leapt his
Olympic-winning distance to finish 2nd behind Ter-Ovanesyan.
Lynn's last
championship medal came at the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh
where he took the Gold medal for Wales with a leap of 8.06m, thus
retaining the title he had won four years earlier in Kingston, Jamaica.
(GH).
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