Ex-addict Manyonga eyes world long jump record

JOHANNESBURG: Rio Olympic Games silver medallist and former drug addict Luvo Manyonga of South Africa has his sights set on smashing the 26-year-old long jump world record of American Mike Powell.

A leap of 8.95m by Powell in Tokyo during 1991 set a benchmark no rival has surpassed.

“My dream is to become the first athlete to jump over 9m,” Manyonga said as he prepared for the National Athletics Champion- ships this weekend.

The self-confessed former methamphetamine user broke the South African and African records by jumping 8.62m at a regional meet in Pretoria last month.

That leap was 12cm longer than the previous best set by another South African, Khotso Mokoena, eight years ago in Madrid.

It was also the longest jump in the world since 2009 and matched the 12th best of all time.

But as Manyonga gets set for the long jump event in northwest university town Potchefstroom, he has the world mark on his mind.

“The world record has been a goal of mine even before I started jumping competitively,” he said.

“It has been too long since anyone came close to jumping nine metres and I am capable of leaping much further than my record in Pretoria.

“I cannot say when my dream will come true but no record should last forever,” he added, referring to the lengthy reign of Powell.

His coach, Neil Cornelius, was stunned by the Pretoria leap that brought Manyonga the national and African records.

“I believed Luvo was going to overtake Khotso, but just by a centimetre or two.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine he would do so by 12cm.”

A former coach of Manyonga, now deceased Mario Smith, once said the athlete had “the most perfect technique I have ever seen in a long jumper”.

Manyonga was a 2010 world junior champion and finished 1cm behind American Jeff Henderson in the contest for the 2016 Rio Games long jump gold. — AFP