The way that the long jump competition works is this: everyone takes three jumps. After everyone in the finals has jumped three times, they cut the field down to eight, using the best jump of the three from each athlete.
Great Moments In ‘I Already Won’
Bill Hanstock is a writer, author and Emmy Award-winning producer. He began writing for SB Nation in 2011.
After the cut, there are three more jumps from the remaining eight athletes. The longest of every finalist’s six jumps wins. So, sometimes, someone has already won before it’s time to take the final jump. That leads to awesome moments like this one.
Great Britain’s Greg Rutherford was leading heading into the final few jumps on Saturday and knew he would be jumping last. When his final turn came and nobody had beaten his best jump, he knew the gold medal was already won. So he could feel free to do this.
Outstanding. The only thing that would have been better would have been if he had smoked a cigarette while jogging down the lane, or perhaps just jumped over the line and started doing “the worm.”
Bonus points for fully channeling his inner Michael Rapaport with that pose at the end.
For more on the Olympics, check out SB Nation’s London 2012 Olympics Hub.
See More:
