On behalf of the Diamond League, Stockholm tested a different format in the long jump at the competition yesterday.

This means that whoever jumps the farthest in the sixth and final jump wins the competition, regardless of who has jumped the longest before that.

The format has met with great criticism from those active. Swedish Thobias Montler has expressed his dissatisfaction as well as reigning world champion Brittney Reese.

- Terrible! Our sport continues to go in the wrong direction, Reese wrote on Twitter.

Jan Kowalski, competition director for the Diamond League gala in Stockholm, understands the criticism from the active ones but is positive to a change in the long jump format.

- It must be more exciting for TV viewers in the future. 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. As a TV viewer, I think it is important to get the chance to be live in what determines the competition, says Kowalski to SVT Sport.

Kowalski says that they will soon have an evaluation meeting of the format where they summarize the impressions from activists, TV viewers and others involved. The evaluation will then be sent to the main organizer of the Diamond League.

But already now he has gathered some impressions from those who competed yesterday.

- There is criticism among the athletes who think that this does not improve their ability to perform well. And I understand that. It is in the nature of things that they want to do as well as possible and that must be taken into account when evaluating this and looking at what to do in the future.

Kowalski believes that the format test will lead to something good.

- If this is not the right shape, you may find another format eventually. But I think it is important to dare to test new formats so that we can come up with a final proposal that is good for all parties.

CLIP: Thobias Montler jumped the longest - but did not win (August 23, 2020)

Javascript is disabled

Javascript must be turned on to play video

Read more about browser support

The browser is not supported

SVT does not support playback in your browser. We therefore recommend that you switch to another browser.

Read more about browser support