Thursday, July 7, 2016

Jordan Rickert - Triple Jump

Dank je wel!


Today was our first day of volunteering for the European Athletic Championships! It began early in the morning with a Metro line at 6:20am.  We arrived at Nelson Mandela park to work one of the many venues for the Athletic School Championships.  

The event was for school-aged children to compete in similar events to those of the EAC.  The group had three goals in order for the children to experience “athletics like never before”—see, do, and inspire.
  1. The children would watch instruction from all of the volunteers
  2. The children would experience the games by participating at the Athletic School Championships
  3. The children would be inspired by watching the athletes at the EAC

After introducing each competition, the children would take turns attempting their personal highest score.  The competitions included: long jump, shot-put, javelin (vortex throw), and sprints.





The children enjoyed the day and were full of energy.  At my site, there was 24 teams during the first session and 32 teams during the second session.  That is a lot of kids!  Luckily, lunch was carb-loaded to give the volunteers energy for the rest of the day—raisin muffin, chicken sandwich, egg sandwich, raisin cookies, gruyere cheese and orange juice.



              Triple jump is a track and field Olympic event performed in the sandpit. Athletes take a three step approach before horizontally jumping forward to reach maximum distance.  The three steps are actually refereed to as a hop, step and a jump.  Many are unsure of when the event originated since it is similar to the long jump in ancient explanations.  It is a complex jump, but Olympic athletes average 15 meter jumps.  Below is a picture from the 2008 Olympics showing each step of the triple jump process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_jump)




The furthest distance wins with the measurement taken at the heels of the athlete’s landing.  Both world records for triple jump were captured in 1995 by Jonathan Edwards and Inessa Kravets.  To watch more triple jump records, view: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=best+triple+jumps&view=detail&mid=9F683C6474EC08ABF0259F683C6474EC08ABF025&FORM=VIRE


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