Exactly three decades after his astonishing performance at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg, Jonathan Edwards says his world record triple jump still fills him with pride and wonder. Edwards, who leapt an unprecedented 18.29 meters (60 feet) to set a mark that has never been surpassed, told CNN Sport that the achievement remains surreal. \u201cTo hold a world record, to do something better than anybody else has done in the history of the world, it\u2019s remarkable,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just me \u2013 my little, skinny, White legs. It\u2019s a lovely thing.\u201d
Edwards admits he never tires of watching footage of the jump, recalling his explosive sprint down the runway, the fluid sequence of bounding strides, and the final soaring leap into the sandpit. He knew instantly he had broken the record\u2014twice in succession that day\u2014before raising his hands in celebration and awaiting the scoreboard confirmation. His closest rival, Bermuda\u2019s Brian Wellman, finished more than half a meter behind, underlining the scale of Edwards\u2019 dominance at the championships.
The Briton\u2019s leap remains one of track and field\u2019s longest-standing world records. Since then, only American Christian Taylor has come within 10 centimeters of the mark, and just eight athletes in history have cleared the 18-meter barrier. Edwards, however, revealed that heading into Gothenburg he was far from assured of victory despite his fine form. \u201cI thought I could easily not win,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThe potential was there for me not to win, and that would be a disaster, even though I jumped so well throughout the year.\u201d
Behind his composure, Edwards admits nerves nearly got the better of him. On arrival in Sweden, he even bought a pair of sunglasses\u2014not for the summer sun, but to mask his fear from fellow competitors. Yet, once on the runway, he delivered one of athletics\u2019 most iconic moments, twice rewriting the record books within a single afternoon.
Thirty years on, Edwards\u2019 record remains untouched, a testament to both his technical mastery and athletic brilliance. For the now-retired champion, the achievement continues to inspire. \u201cIt\u2019s something very aesthetically pleasing,\u201d he said. \u201cTo know I\u2019ve done something no one else has done\u2014it still brings a smile to my face.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Exactly three decades after his astonishing performance at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg, Jonathan Edwards says his world record triple jump still fills him with pride and wonder. Edwards, who leapt an unprecedented 18.29 meters (60 feet) to set a mark that has never been surpassed, told CNN Sport that the achievement remains surreal. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/images-2025-08-27T103353.138.jpeg?fit=783%2C391&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17275,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17274\/revisions\/17275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}