The International Athletics Federation’s CEO Jon Ridgeon told the Anything but footy podcast on Monday that they will test the jump zone and measure the jump from where the jumper takes off to where it lands in the pit. Thus all jumps become valid.
Ridgeon refers to the World Championships in Budapest where a third of the jumps were disallowed due to trampling.
– It doesn’t work, it’s a waste of time, says Ridgeon in the podcast.
“Think they’re wrong”
Jon Ridgeon believes that athletics, which has existed for 150 years, must evolve to survive for another 150 years. Something that Yannick Tregaro, who is currently training Thobias Montler and Tilde Johansson, does not agree with.
– It feels like World athletics has snowballed a bit on the tracks that they have to innovate. I think they’re wrong, they’re trying to invent new rules and do things to make the sport more popular, but I don’t think it’s about that.
Tregaro believes that the competition for people’s time is completely different today, but does not believe that the way forward is to change the sport.
– I think on the contrary, we just have to be better at presenting the sport we have, I think we would win from that, keep the tradition and be proud of the sport we have, we don’t need to change it.
“Everyone strongly opposed”
The jumping zone will now be trialled at smaller competitions – if successful it could be introduced permanently at events from 2026, such as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
– All the athletes I have spoken to are very strongly against it, so if they are going to change this, they will have a very large part of the practitioners and coaches against them is my feeling right now, says Yannick Tregaro.
Hear Yannick Tregaros explain why he opposes the proposal in the player above.