Background
Powell, Mike was born on November 10, 1963 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
Olympic athlete track and field
Powell, Mike was born on November 10, 1963 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
He attended Edgewood High School in West Covina, California, where he finished second in the High jump at the CIF California State Meet in 1981.
Background
He went on to attend the University of California, Irvine and later transferred to the University of California at Los Los Angeles Athletics career
At the 1991 World Championships in Athletics (Tokyo), Powell broke Bob Beamon"s almost 23-year-old long jump world record by 5 cm (2 inches), leaping 8.95 m (29 ft 41⁄4 in). Powell"s world record, now more than 24 years, still stands, making Powell the fourth person since 1900 to hold the record for over 20 years.
He also holds the longest non-legal jump of 8.99 m (29 ft 53⁄4 in) (wind-aided +44) set at high altitude in Sestriere, Italy in 1992.
Powell competed in the 1992-1993 Foot Locker Slam Fest and successfully dunked from the free throw line. He is one of few individuals to dunk the basketball from this distance.
After the 1996 Olympics, Powell retired. He returned in 2001 with a goal of competing in the 2004 Olympics, but did not make the American team
After retirement
Powell became an analyst for Yahoo! Sports Olympic Track & Field coverage.
He stated in July 2009 that he intended to return to competition with the aim of breaking Tapani Taavitsainen"s Masters over-45 world record in the long jump. Powell now coaches long jump permanently at the Academy of Speed in Rancho Cucamonga, California. At the Simplot Games on February 20, 2015 in an official announcement Powell stated that, at the age of 51, he would jump again in competition.
On March 7, 2015 Powell entered the Athletics New Zealand Track and Field Championships, with every jump considered an attempt at the World Masters record.
However, Powell sustained an injury in warm up and didn"t actually compete. He later stated he will jump again in the future.
If he breaks the Masters record he will be the only athlete in any event to ever hold both the current World record and the World Masters record in such an old division simultaneously. Yuriy Sedykh held both the world record and the record in the M45 division from 2001 to 2010.
Haile Gebrselassie, Carlos Lopes and Jim Peters set both records simultaneously as 35-year-olds.
He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.