Inside me, I start 164 feet back and 23 steps for me.

It's probably the longest run in the world.

For 15 years, the record has stood.

The longest jump ever made by Bob Beeman.

Now, this man, Carl Lewis, dreams of breaking that record.

Can he do it?

Dick Shabb, with the drama and the dream of the perfect jump.

After this, an athlete named Carl Lewis won three major events at the National Track

and Field Championships at Indianapolis.

They were the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash, and the long jump.

The same events that Jesse Owens won at the historic Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936.

Last month's victories virtually assure Carl Lewis a prominent place on America's Olympic track team

next year in Los Angeles.

But for Lewis, one of those three events, the long jump, represents a special goal, a dream to be fulfilled.

Breaking the long jump record.

As Dick Shabb tells us, it's a singular record, an almost mystical goal for Carl Lewis

and for the man who set the record 15 years ago.

Oaxi-106, 1968 was the year for this old, shredding classic.

Sitting in the morning sun, how they sitting in the evening sun.

Watching the ships roll in, then I'll watch them roll away.

He drives down darkened streets, haunted by memories.

Memories of an event that took place 15 years ago.

An event that lifted him out of the shadows and thrust him suddenly into the brightest spotlight.

Mexico City, October 18, 1968.

El Estadio Olimpico, the long jump championship.

Bob Beaman starts his approach slowly, gathering momentum.

Distrived, stretching out, 19 of them.

The last step, long and piston light.

His right foot pounding the takeoff board perfectly, driving himself up, up, up.

His mind goes blank.

His hearing deserts him.

The stadium is silent.

He hangs in the air, it seems, forever.

When he comes down, his heels strike the sand.

With such force, he bounds on one hop like an airplane, harshly landed right out of the pit.

Bob Beaman has jumped 29 feet, two and one half inches, 22 inches beyond the existing world record.

Arguably, but conceivably, the most spectacular individual achievement in the history of all sports.

Statistically, the equivalent of Roger Bannister bursting through the four minute barrier for the mile,

not by a fraction of a second, but by more than 15 seconds.

29 feet, two and one half inches, a magic number, a miracle, good cause for joy and tears.

29 feet, two and one half inches.

Fifteen years later, the number is still haunts Bob Beaman.

It is his past.

The number haunts Carl Lewis, too.

It is his future.

He remembers vividly the first time he heard the number.

The first day I heard it, I was at home, and I ran out on a front yard and measured it out,

and I couldn't believe distance.

It looked like, you know, two cattle asked me at the time, so it was so far that I was inconceivable,

and I just couldn't even imagine ever jumping like that, and it was just something like,

oh, that guy did something that was in human.

We'll never do it.

29 feet, two and one half inches is no longer inconceivable to Carl Lewis.

At the age of only 21, he is the finest active long jumper in the world.

He has jumped farther than anyone else in history, anyone except Bob Beaman.

Only Carl Lewis of all the gifted men practicing this graceful art has soared officially within inches of 29 feet.

Only Carl Lewis has soared within inches of perfection.

Lewis dreams of his own perfect jump.

I start 164 feet back, and it's 23 steps for me.

It's probably the longest run in the world, one and the longest ever.

In his dream, Lewis funders down the runway.

His speed building, approaching 30 miles an hour as he drives into the takeoff board.

And then, in his dream, he sores.

Sores beyond 29 feet, two and one half inches.

He sores into history.

I'll stand up slowly and just turn around and look back at it and just say that's it.

The dream glows brightly for Carl Lewis, who grew up comfortably in rural New Jersey,

whose father and mother are both track coaches,

whose sister is, like him, a long jumping star and, like him, attends the University of Houston.

For student Lewis, who sprints as brilliantly as he jumps, who enjoys the six-figure annual income,

common among the more gifted amateur track men, who hopes to become a broadcaster, the dream is endless.

In 10 years from now, I can just see flying to different sporting events,

commentating here and there, and maybe hitting on a sitcom for a few weeks,

and then going back to my billion-dollar ranch out in West California near the river or something near the ocean,

and just having a good time.

Dreams come easily to Carl Lewis.

Reality came hard to Bob Beaman, who knew neither comfort nor stability in his childhood.

His mother's husband was in prison when he was conceived.

His mother died when he was one, considered incorrigible, ineducable,

he meant to struggle to become an athlete, to become a man.

His magnificent jump in Mexico City did not turn his life into a dream.

Cynic scoffed and said only the thin air of Mexico City made the jump possible.

This is his argue that the air meant little, and realists pointed out that his rivals did not break records,

but still Beaman's image was tarnished.

He never jumped 29 feet again, never jumped 28, never jumped even 27 feet.

His athletic career faded, and fame on a grand scale looted him.

He tried out for professional basketball and failed to make it.

He tried professional track, and neither he nor the idea succeeded.

He coached at little known colleges in San Diego and here in New York,

on the edge of this housing project in which he was raised.

His three marriages collapsed, but Beaman did have triumphs, private triumphs,

graduate study in psychology, encouraging youngsters in the ghetto and in the Special Olympics.

Now he lives and plays in Miami, working for the Dade County Parks Commission,

and he insists to others and to himself that he is not bitter, that he does not covet the fame and wealth that escaped him.

Do you ever wish that you hadn't jumped 29 feet?

No, I've never felt that way.

Are you still a hero?

Yes, in a way. To the younger kids, when we have clinics, they put out 29 feet, two and a half inches, and they just say,

my goodness, how can you do that?

Carl Lewis believes he has already jumped 29 feet, probably beyond Bob Beaman's world record, possibly beyond 30 feet.

Lewis believes he performed this magic not in a dream, but in Indianapolis.

Last summer, on this jump, a jump that was controversially adjudged a foul, a jump that was never measured officially.

Did Lewis jump more than 29 feet, two and one half inches?

Will Lewis jump more than 29 feet, two and one half inches?

Those are lovely mysteries, and the man who has the best clues to the answers is,

an Israeli-born physicist in Gideon Ariel, a specialist in biomechanics, an expert in human physical exertion.

We utilized the firm that actually was shot at the instance where Bob Beaman, in this case, jumped his best jump 29, two and a half,

and we digitized or we transferred the information from the body segments right to the computer,

armed with films and with formulas, and with a computer programmed to perform biomechanical wizardry,

Ariel has studied not only Beaman's record jump, but also Lewis's controversial foul jump,

a jump on which judges ruled with very little evidence that he inched past the takeoff board,

the jump Lewis himself and many experts thought was the longest ever.

How far is the distance? Is that the world record? Some people said that that's probably over 30 feet.

If we know this distance and we know the distance from where he lands to the end of the pit in the good jump,

we can calculate what is the distance from the end of the pit back to the foul jump.

If I give it an upper limit, it was 28-11, which is the second best jump of all time.

Ariel has explored all the major track and field records and concludes that Beaman's is the closest to man's potential.

Theoretically, within three or four inches of the absolute limit, the point where physical damage is inevitable,

the point that Carl Lewis is aiming for.

That's where his injury is very close. I think if he will produce a jump that will go close to 30 feet,

he might tell up his ligament or tell up his bone or tell up his some tissue.

I hope he's wrong.

The one reason, because I feel that an athlete right now with the right type of technical training

and obviously the right technique can jump well over 30 feet.

Well, sometimes we like to be wrong, but...

If Ariel is wrong, if Lewis is right, Bob Beaman's record could fall any day,

or it could fall in the brightest spotlight next year, 16 years after Beaman's triumph in the Olympic Games.

The perfect thing would be if in 1984, in the Colosseum, in Los Angeles, you jumped 30 feet,

you won the gold medal, and immediately became the television commentator.

What question would you then ask yourself?

I think the first thing I'll ask myself is, was everything worth it?

Was everything worth the time, the struggle, the effort, the emotional strain?

Was everything that you've done over life worth this one moment?

And what would you answer?

Yes, without question.

29 feet, 2 and 1 half inches, Bob Beaman produced it, and Carl Lewis, who tasted it.

Hmm, just think, only four and a quarter inches stand between Lewis and the perfect jump.

His next shot at the long jump record will be in Helsinki next month at the World Championship Track Competition,

and after that, the Pan-American Games and a series of events leading up to the Los Angeles Olympics.

And if he's going to break that record, it's hard to think of a better place to do it than at the Olympics,

or thanks to Dick Schack for that report.

Thanks for watching!