At the Stade de France,
In Markus Rehm’s world, you could call that a narrow victory. legendary German long jumper jumped to 8.13m on Wednesday night to add a fourth Paralympic champion title to his gigantic list of achievements, with “only” 34 centimetres of margin on his runner-up, the American Derreck Loccident (7.79m). Already in May, during the World Championships in Kobe, the latter had come close to 61 centimetres, while the Kaiser had been used for ages to leaving the competition a good metre behind him.
A prodigious world record
Happy with this new gold medal, of course, Rehm did not hide after the competition that this performance had left him hungry. “I wanted more, the distance is not really what I hoped for, he answered us in the mixed zone of the Stade de France. I was aiming at least for the Paralympic record, we said that with my coach.”
This mark, set at 8.21 m by himself (obviously) in Rio, he wanted to push it much further, in order to ensure his legacy for a while longer, he who at 36 is not certain to be there in Los Angeles in 2028. More secretly, he undoubtedly aspired to take advantage of the exposure window of these Games to come and tease, or even more if affinities, his fabulous world record raised last year to 8.72 m, only 23 centimeters less than that of the able-bodied, owned by Mike Powell since 1991 and an epic duel with Carl Lewis.
“There is still room after this mark”
A prodigious achievement, since only 14 athletes in history have jumped further than him, and this mark is higher than those achieved by the last six Olympic champions. But the German, who had his right leg amputated at the age of 14 after a wakeboarding accident, is not the type to be satisfied with that. What interests him is pushing the limits ever further, a state of mind that allowed him to become in 2014 the first German para athlete to win a national able-bodied title thanks to a jump of 8.34m.
Two years later, he had his sights set on competing in the Olympics. But after heated debates about whether or not his blade gave him an advantage and a scientific report published on the issue (without a clear answer, because while he may be at an advantage in the moment of the push-off, he is also at a disadvantage in his run-up), the German Athletics Federation did not let him go through with his efforts. So Markus Rehm, nicknamed “Blade Jumper”, continued to write his legend in Paralympic sport, of which he is now an icon.
To complete his work, the man who is also a seven-time world champion in the discipline has set himself one final goal: to become the first man in the world – disabled or not – to cross the 9 m mark. Will he ever get there? The idea seems crazy, and the person concerned does not know if it is possible, but he is certain of one thing: he has not reached his limit. This is what he assured us Wednesday evening when we launched him on the subject:
“8.72m is great, but I have the conviction that there is more to go for. I don’t really know why, I can’t explain it, but I believe it deep down. The day I broke this record, it seemed too easy to me. There is still room after this mark.”
In this quest, he can in any case count on the support of his current best rival, Dereck Loccident. Intercepted before he got on the bus, the latter sees nothing impossible in it. “He can pass them, why not? We could be the first human beings to jump more than 9 meters, I believe in that, says the American. I am sure that this is his goal, and it can become mine too. He is one of the greatest long jumpers in history, he motivates me every time I am with him in competition.”
Question of force applied to the blade
Frenchman Dimitri Pavadé, fourth, just six centimetres off the podium (7.43 m against 7.49 m for American Wallace), explains how Rehm is made for exploits. “He’s tall (1.85 m), he’s strong, and the heavier and stronger you are, the harder a blade you can use,” he explains. “It’s like pole vaulters, the more force they can put in and bend a hard pole, the higher they’ll jump.” The German must therefore succeed in developing even more power on his support blade to benefit from greater leverage.
“For now, I’m going to enjoy this title, rest, and then I’m going to set new goals and look for ways to go even further,” he says for now. The desire is still there, in any case. And if he doesn’t manage to achieve this ultimate dream, Markus Rehm will always be able to say to himself that he paved the way for others.
OUR 2024 PARALYMPIC GAMES FILE
“There will be a day when someone will beat me on the track, but I hope that day is still a little far away,” he says with a smile. “But it’s good, that’s what I wanted too, to increase the competition in this discipline. We’re slowly getting there and I think that in Los Angeles, four or five athletes will be over 8m, already. I hope I’ll be there to see it, and if not, I’ll watch from my couch, pushing behind them.”