> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.grumpybuck.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # On This Date: Ralph Boston Sets the Long Jump World Record — for the Sixth Time (Sept. 12, 1964) - URL: https://www.grumpybuck.com/on-this-date-ralph-boston-sets-the-long-jump-world-record-for-the-sixth-time-sept-12-1964/ - Published: 2026-09-12T11:51:23.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-12T11:51:23.000Z - Author: Brad Riddell - Tags: Sports History, On This Date, Track and Field On this date in 1964, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Ralph Boston jumped **27 feet, 4¼ inches** at the final U.S. Olympic Trials and set the world record in the long jump. It was the sixth time he had done that. Earlier in the same competition he'd sailed 27 feet 10¼, the longest jump anyone had ever made, and had it thrown out because the wind was a hair over the limit. He was, without much argument, the best long jumper in the world, and had been for four years. And the two moments everyone remembers from his career belong to other men. ![“Boston Cracks World Broad Jump Mark” — AP, in the Arizona Daily Star, Sept. 13, 1964. A “lanky 25-year-old graduate student running for the Southern California Striders,” 18,558 in the Coliseum, and the 27-10¼ that a 5.8-mph wind took away.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/09/clip-rb-arizona-star-cracks-mark-1964-09-13.jpg) “Boston Cracks World Broad Jump Mark” — AP, in the Arizona Daily Star, Sept. 13, 1964\. A “lanky 25-year-old graduate student running for the Southern California Striders,” 18,558 in the Coliseum, and the 27-10¼ that a 5.8-mph wind took away. ## The Record He Took From Jesse Owens Jesse Owens jumped 26 feet 8¼ inches at Ann Arbor on May 25, 1935, in the middle of the greatest single afternoon in track history, and the mark sat there for **25 years**. Nobody touched it through a world war and the whole postwar boom. Then, on Aug. 12, 1960, a 21-year-old from Laurel, Mississippi, by way of Tennessee State, went 26 feet 11¼ at a meet in Walnut, California, and Owens' record was gone. Three weeks later Boston won the gold medal in Rome with an Olympic-record 26 feet 7¾, taking down the other Owens mark, the one from Berlin in 1936\. He then spent the next five years improving the world record almost as a hobby: 27-0½ at Modesto in 1961, 27-1¾ in Moscow two months later, and when the Soviet Igor Ter-Ovanesyan took it away in 1962, Boston took it back. The 27-4¼ on this date in 1964 was the fifth of six world records he set or equaled. (One footnote: in 2021, World Athletics retroactively ratified a 27-4 jump by Phil Shinnick from 1963, so on paper this date's record broke Shinnick's mark. Shinnick was in the pit that day and finished third.) Boston's last world record, 27-4¾ at Modesto in May 1965, stood for three and a half years. It stood, that is, until the afternoon that made every long-jump record before it irrelevant. ## Tokyo: Five Weeks Later The Olympic final in Tokyo came on Oct. 18, 1964, in pouring rain, cold, and a headwind, on a cinder runway that had turned to soup. Americans had won the event at eight straight Olympics. Boston led after four rounds. Then Lynn Davies of Wales, who had been told by his coach to watch the stadium flag and jump when it went slack, caught a lull in the fifth round and went 26 feet 5¾. Boston answered in the last round with 26-4¼ and came up **an inch and a half** short. Silver. The streak was over. ![Boston, in bib 256, wrapped against the weather between jumps.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/09/rb-blanket-bib-256.jpg) Boston, in bib 256, wrapped against the weather between jumps. ## Mexico City: The Master and the Student Four years later, in Mexico City, Boston was 29 and still the favorite in a lot of people's minds. He led the qualifying round with an Olympic-record jump. In the same qualifying round, a 22-year-old American named Bob Beamon fouled twice and was one more foul from going home. Boston walked over and told him to move his takeoff mark back and jump safe. Beamon has told the story for 50 years: "I had better listen to the master." He qualified. The next day, Oct. 18, 1968, Beamon jumped **29 feet 2½ inches** on his first attempt. He didn't just break the world record Boston had held; he beat it by nearly two feet. The optical measuring device couldn't read a jump that long; officials had to find a tape. Beamon collapsed when he understood the number. It was Ralph Boston, standing next to him, who converted the meters into feet for him. Boston took the bronze that day, at 26-9¼, a jump that would have won most Olympics before it. His name never appeared in the record book again. ![Boston in flight, mid-1960s: the form that held the world record six times.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/09/rb-flight-1960s.jpg) Boston in flight, mid-1960s: the form that held the world record six times. ## What He Was Six world records in five years. An Olympic gold, silver and bronze in three straight Games, the only long jumper ever to do that. The man who ended Jesse Owens' quarter-century and then, with a word of advice on a foul line, helped end his own. He died on April 30, 2023, at 83. Everybody remembers the rain in Tokyo and the impossible number in Mexico City. Between those two afternoons stands the man who was better than everyone for eight years, and who, on this date in 1964, was better than he'd ever been. **Which is the greater feat: holding a record for 25 years, or breaking it six times? Comments below.**