THE 1987 PAN AMERICAN GAMES : Joyner-Kersee Equals World Record: 24-5 1/2

In a meet that she almost chose not to attend, in an event that her coach/husband can take or leave, Jackie Joyner-Kersee tied the world long jump record of 24 feet 5 1/2 inches Thursday night in the Pan American Games.

Joyner-Kersee, 25, reached the record she now shares with East Germany’s Heike Drechsler on the sixth and final jump of a remarkable series before a crowd of 10,504 at the Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis track.

She had five of the six longest jumps ever by an American woman, twice breaking her previous U.S. record of 23-9. Her legal jumps before the world record, in order, were 23-4 3/4, 23-9 1/2, 23-8 and 23-5 1/2.

The only other American woman to jump over 23 feet is Carol Lewis, who has done it once. Her brother, Carl, believes he can set the men’s world record Sunday in this same facility, considered one of the best for long jumping.

As soon as Joyner-Kersee emerged from her well-wishers in the infield, she was embraced by her husband, UCLA women’s track Coach Bob Kersee.

“So now I can long jump?” Joyner-Kersee asked.

He was speechless, tears running down his cheeks.

Afterward, while talking to reporters, Kersee collapsed with emotion, not regaining his composure for several minutes.

The question of whether Joyner-Kersee is a heptathlete or a long jumper first has been a source of contention in their Long Beach home since she and Kersee were married in January, 1986.

He has insisted that her best event is the heptathlon. Not even she could argue after she set the world record twice last summer, becoming the first American ever to hold the heptathlon record. Now she is the first American woman ever to hold the long jump record.

“That girl is something,” Kersee said. “I will never doubt her ability.”

This was the first track and field world record at the Pan American Games since Brazilian Joao de Oliveira’s 58-8 1/2 triple jump in 1975.

There were a few anxious moments Thursday night before Joyner-Kersee’s record was confirmed.

“I didn’t think it was a world record,” said Joyner-Kersee, who claimed her best jump technically was the second, on which she fouled.

But the other American in the competition, Jennifer Inniss, who finished second at 22-5 3/4, told her that it was at least even with Drechsler’s mark.

“You think so?” Joyner-Kersee asked.

Only when the officials brought out the tape measure, standard procedure for world records, did Joyner-Kersee begin to get excited.

The electronic eye showed 7.46 meters, but the official measurement was 7.45, which Drechsler did twice within 12 days last summer.

As an interesting aside, the electronic eye here was manufactured in East Germany at Jena Manufacturing Equipment, where Drechsler is employed.

The scoreboard didn’t register the official mark until after the measurement, which followed Joyner-Kersee’s jump by about 10 minutes.

By then, an official, Princeton Coach Larry Ellis, already had informed Joyner-Kersee of the record.

“While I was waiting, I was wondering whether I should throw my shoes or just raise my arms,” she said of her plans for a celebration.

But when the moment came that she learned of the record, she was too stunned to react.

That was not true of her husband.

Told in the interview tent later that Kersee cried, Joyner-Kersee looked at him and asked, “Did you?”

He threw a wadded-up piece of paper at her, which, exhibiting the reflexes she showed as a UCLA basketball player, she deflected.

Tears then came to her eyes.

“This means a lot,” she said. “I know I’m difficult to work with. I know I’m stubborn. He’ll tell me something, and I’m giving him feedback, and he doesn’t want to hear it.

“Maybe now he knows I’m not as hard-headed as he thinks I am. Maybe now he knows I’m listening at least half the time.”

At least he knows she was listening when he told her in recent weeks she could get more extension by raising her knees over her head and lowering her rear end while she was in the air.

But she didn’t seem to get the point until a woman fan at the track earlier this week handed her a Track & Field News to autograph.

While flipping through the magazine, she noticed a picture of Drechsler jumping at the world indoor championship in Indianapolis last February.

“Oh, that’s what you mean,” Joyner-Kersee told her husband, referring to Drechsler’s style.

Kersee said Wednesday night Drechsler deserves at least half the credit for the record.

But some credit also should go to the person who designed this long jump area, which has a fast Mondo surface on the runway and an extra-large pit.

The long jump area is one of the reasons Joyner-Kersee wanted to jump here. Her husband was against it at first because he didn’t want her to risk injury before the world championships later this month in Rome, where she will compete in the heptathlon and then meet Drechsler in the long jump. But Joyner-Kersee convinced him she could use the competition.

She was right, again.