Powell Leaps Farther Than Ever in Wind : Track and field: His jump of 29-6 won’t be considered a world record. Drechsler goes 25-0 1/2.

Mike Powell and Heike Drechsler took advantage of winds and high altitude Tuesday to make the longest jumps in track and field history.

Their efforts will not go into the record books, though, because the winds exceeded the limit for world-record recognition.

Powell soared 29 feet 6 inches, which is 1 1/2 inches better than his world-record long jump last year at the World Championships in Tokyo. It came on Powell’s fifth try of the day, just as the wind was peaking at 4.4 meters per second (9.84 m.p.h). The limit for world records is 2 meters per second.

Drechsler jumped 25-0 1/2, eclipsing the world mark of 24-8 1/4 set by Galina Chistyakova in Leningrad in 1988. The wind was blowing at 2.1 meters per second when the German got off that jump.

Gone with the wind, in addition to their record chances, were their hopes for the Ferrari Testarossa sports car given for breaking a world mark. It was the fourth year in a row the $200,000 sports car went unclaimed.

Powell said that Tuesday’s jump, at the 6,600-foot altitude of Sestriere, supported his prediction that a 30-foot jump was possible at the Games.

He said he was stronger and more determined than at the World Championships when he beat Carl Lewis and broke Bob Beamon’s 23-year-old world record.

Powell started off Tuesday with a wind-aided leap of 28-4 1/4. All his jumps were helped by the wind.

“This is the best place in the world for jumping,” Powell said. “I did the longest jump in history, and I feel I can go farther in Barcelona.”

Lewis, who failed to qualify for the Olympic sprints and is expected to compete only in the long jump in Barcelona, beat Santa Monica teammates Leroy Burrell and Mark Witherspoon in the 100 meters.

Lewis saw his performance as proof he had finally overcome the effects of the infection he blamed for his poor showing at the U.S. trials in New Orleans.

Lewis was timed in 9.98 seconds, his best performance this year, and one that might earn him a berth on the U.S. Olympic team for the 400-meter relay.

Lewis, who passed up a duel with Powell in the long jump to show he has regained his form in the sprints, also competed in the relay along with Witherspoon, James Jett and Michael Marsh in a winning time of 38.44 seconds.

“I’m feeling stronger race after race,” Lewis said. “I will be 100% at Barcelona.”

Americans dominated the sprints, and their times, as well as their jumps, showed the combined effects of winds and altitude.

Marsh won the 200 meters in 19.79 seconds, .07 shy of the world record set by Pietro Mennea set in 1979.

But he had a wind of 4 meters per second at his back as he outsprinted Danny Everett, a 400-meter specialist who ran a 20.14.

Gwen Torrence edged American teammate Evelyn Ashford with a 10.82 clocking in the women’s 100.

Defending Olympic champion Steve Lewis beat fellow American Andrew Valmon in the 400 meters, in 44.27 seconds.