Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

In 1969 uttered the immortal words "that's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind" when he became the first man to

Now, is probably for another blog elsewhere, but what I'm more interested in is what inspired Armstrong's words?

Could he possibly still have had on his mind as he bounced down the steps from the lunar module?

You see, one year earlier, another American, Bob Beamon, obliterated the long jump world record at the Mexico 1968 Olympics with a leap arguably as memorable as Armstrong's.

Beamon became the first man to pass the 28 and 29 feet mark as he bettered the old record by 21.75 inches, or 55 centimetres.

To put that into perspective, in the previous 33 years, the world record had been improved by just 22cm from Jesse Owen's 8.13m in 1935 to Igor Ter-Ovanesyan's 8.35m in 1967.

Beamon's 8.90m jump had to be measured manually as the technology on hand could not cope with such a distance.

Detractors point to the fact that Beamon's jump was achieved at altitude where the thinner air helps athletes who compete in sprinting and jumping events and that he had a following wind of 2.0m per second, which is the maximum allowed for a world record to stand.

But I like to think it was just his day and it was one of those glorious moments in sport where everything clicks.

He never came close to matching his record, 8.22m being the furthest he achieved in the rest of his career, but his record lasted an incredible 23 years before compatriot Mike Powell eclipsed it.

Powell's leap of 8.95m came in at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo when he beat team-mate Carl Lewis, who had been undefeated in his previous 65 competitions spanning a decade.

But Beamon's 8.90m remains the Olympic record 40 years on and unsurprisingly is the longest-standing mark yet to be broken.

How much longer can you see it lasting?