On one famed afternoon in Mexico City in 1968, Bob Beamon leaped 8.90 meters, shattering the old world record by an astonishing 55 centimeters. He wouldn't be topped for 25 years, when Mike Powell jumped 8.95 in 1991. No one has beaten Powell since, so he has been top for three decades now. Amazingly, the women's record has not been touched for even longer, as then-Soviet Galina Chistyakova jumped 7.52 meters all the way back in 1988.

While Inessa Kravets cannot approach Powell or Chistyakova, her own record also stood for over a quarter of a century. Kravets is a triple jumper, who won the first-ever women's gold medal in the event at the 1996 Olympics. (It was also one of the first gold medals for the newly-minted nation of Ukraine.) Kravets, who has Jewish ancestry on her mother's side, held the record until 2021, when it was finally beaten by Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela.

Before we go, a couple of questions:

If there is the triple jump, why is there no double jump?

Why do all these jumping records take so long to break?