'Blade Jumper' Markus Rehm on the chase for Mike Powell's long jump world record: "I'm dreaming of this magic mark"
Every time Markus Rehm’s cell phone lights up, a big '9' flashes on the screen.
“That's the motivation, seen every day,” the German four-time Paralympic champion says.
The coveted number Rehm has his phone wallpaper and sights set on is exactly 0.05m over the current world record in long jump, which Mike Powell set 32 years ago. Having broken 14 world records in his Paralympic classification class, Rehm knows first-hand the hard work it takes to set a new mark.
He also knows that it is possible.
“I'm dreaming of this magic mark. 8.95 still stands for Mike Powell. And for me, it's always so far out of reach and slowly we're getting closer," the man nicknamed "The Blade Jumper" told Olympics.com. "To be very honest, yeah, that's the goal."
Rehm got eight centimetres closer to that “magic mark” in a single jump last year, surpassing the 8.64m record in the men's T64 class he had set only a month ago with a dazzling 8.72m. Only eight people in the world have jumped farther than that.
With his family watching on at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games as he tries to win a fourth consecutive gold medal in the long jump event, Rehm is hoping there will be more than one cause for a celebration.
Markus Rehm won his fourth Paralympic gold medal at Tokyo 2020.
Science over smiles for Markus Rehm
Rehm was the only athlete to jump over 8m at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
His nearest competitor in his category, Dimitri Pavade of France, only managed to get within 79cm of the German. But as Rehm saw his winning distance of 8.18m come up on the scoreboard, there was no smile on his face. Nor at the competitions that followed since as Rehm gradually improved his result by half a metre.
"Sometimes it's hard to explain because people look at me and think, 'Why is he not happy?' Well, it's not because I'm not happy, but I know there's more coming," Rehm said. “If people watch me jumping or watch me competing and I jump, let's say, 8.15 at competition and they don't see me smiling, all over the place, and being super happy, (it's) because that's usually the moment when I know there's more left and that's why I'm not so happy."
The world record that Rehm set in June 2023 at the Internationales LAZ Meeting in Rhede, Germany was no exception.
The first thing he and his coach, Olympic javelin medallist Steffi Nerius, did was walk back out to the sand pit and mentally jot down what could be improved.
“My coach and me, we have seen that the 8.72 wasn't perfect, and right after the first celebration, after the jump, she took me by my hand and showed me how I landed in the pit," Rehm recalled. "She just showed me how unfortunate - let's name it that way - how unfortunate I landed, and that there was actually quite some space left that I could have gained.
"And after that moment I just realised, we could have done even better and it's the motivation for this year to come closer to these nine metres."
The science behind 'The Blade Jumper'
Rehm’s perfectionism in long jump is not only displayed by his walking around the sand pit with his coach after competitions.
A prosthetist by profession, it is perhaps no surprise how much attention Rehm gives to the science behind the long jump. His carbon-fibre prosthesis has undergone multiple improvements over his career. At Tokyo 2020, Rehm had a biomechanics expert film his jumps to be analysed later.
The fact that the world record in his classification category was below 7m just over a decade ago when Rehm first started jumping is a testament to how much he has helped to advance the sport.
There is a drawback, however. As Rehm explained, the focus on the science of the blade can make it difficult to track the athlete's own progress.
“The difficult thing with blade jumping is that we also have this technical aspect. So, we don't have only to focus on the physical ability of your body, but also (it) in combination with your prosthetic leg," Rehm said. "That is a bit difficult because sometimes you don't know, does the problem come from you as an athlete? Are you not able to handle the forces or the energy, or is it the blades that can't deal with it? And that's always a bit difficult to find out."
Bringing the Olympic and Paralympic worlds together
Other than the '9' flashing on his home screen, there is another way Rehm uses his phone as motivation – replaying the historic long jump battle from the 1991 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, which took the sport to new heights.
“I love to watch the competition between Carl Lewis and Mike Powell, the legendary competition," Rehm said. "I just get excited when I watch it because it was such an interesting and fun competition. And that's what I usually like to do right before my competition is to get in this mood of competing.”
One of the biggest dreams for Rehm is to see Olympic and Paralympic athletes come closer together.
The six-time long jump world champion already competes at various events alongside able-bodied athletes, as was the case with the Rhede meet, or in the same events with them, as in the Golden Fly Series. Like fellow Para jumper Fleur Jong, Rehm hopes more events that invite Olympic and Paralympic athletes to compete together will be held.
“I think together we are just better. Why separate each other so much because we love the same thing. We do the same thing, and with or without a prosthetic leg, I think it doesn't make a big difference," Rehm said.
"Also, for the people that enjoy watching long jumping, I think it's great because it is interesting. It's new, it's different. And at the end of the day, we want to deliver a show. We also want to entertain people and show our performances, and I think together we can do it way better than on our own."