The long jump format used at yesterday's Diamond League gala in Stockholm means that the three who jumped the longest after five rounds will have to make up for the victory in a mini final. The one who jumps the farthest in the sixth and final jump wins the competition, regardless of who has jumped the longest before that.

Jan Kowalski, competition director for the gala, is positive about a change in the classic long jump to create a greater excitement for TV viewers.

- As it is now, we do not know when the winning jump will come, many times we do not see the winning jump live because then something else is going on, he told SVT Sport.

Swedish long jumper Erica Jarder does not agree.

- I am convinced that they are thinking from the wrong direction. The athletics format is incredibly well-founded and works so well. Who is the fastest? Who throws the longest? Now they try to change things based on TV, broadcast and audience. I am 100 percent convinced that there is interest if you get to follow the competition in the technical disciplines, you do not get it when it just cuts in some hope, Jarder says to SVT Sport.

She does not think that the solution lies in changing the format of the long jump but on the broadcasts.

- We have cameras on us all the time so the technology is there for people to be able to choose which competition they want to follow. To create an interest, you must be able to follow a competition from start to finish.

- Now they are trying to make long jump interesting in a short time and I do not think that is a winning concept. Long jump is not short but it changes. All of a sudden someone jumps further, another responds and a third fails.

In yesterday's broadcast, SVT's expert Kajsa Bergqvist suggested that "jump zones" are a better alternative. The active jumps then within a zone and the jumps are measured from the tip of the toe to the landing and in this way the overtramp is removed.

But Jarder, who wants to keep the long jump as it is, is against it too.

- It would be as if you only measured the top speed of 100 meters instead of counting on the starting torque. If you remove the plank hit, you remove some of the competence, which makes you good at the branch.

SEE ALSO: Personal Best by Khaddi Sagnia (August 24, 2020)

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