Carl Lewis derides plans to eradicate long jump fouls as early 'April Fools joke'

[ProfessorGAC]

7. M'Eh!

While I certainly respect Carl's vast accomplishments, this doesn't really bother me.
I was a long jumper, too. Obviously not in Carl's class, but pretty good.
My guess is that the number of potentially record breaking jumps that were fouls is reasonably small.
And, it's not like jumpers get one chance. How many meets would have a different winner under these rules. Jumpers spend hours marking their starting point to get as close to the end of the as possible. So, few lose by leaving 3 inches too far back.
The only concern I have about records is the existing great jumps where the jumper left from a centimeter or 2 behind the edge of the board. There's no way to add those centimeters back to existing records. So, if someone breaks the record by 0.01 meters, is it really the record.
But, from a spectator perspective, it's pretty boring to see someone jump 28'10" and have it be a no-jump. We watched for nothing.
Like I said, I respect Carl's opinion, I just don't agree it's that big a deal.