TRACK AND FIELD -  For Edwards, 59-0 Was a Leap of Faith - NYTimes.com
TRACK AND FIELD; For Edwards, 59-0 Was a Leap of Faith
By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY
Published: August 5, 1995
Jonathan Edwards broke the world record in the triple jump on a Tuesday, which was just fine by Edwards but not quite the perfect ending for those who have followed his slow, unconventional and ultimately astonishing rise.
Sunday is the day that best symbolizes Edwards.
The son of an Anglican vicar and a devoutly Christian mother, Edwards grew up in Devonshire well aware of the importance of respecting the sabbath. In the Edwards home, Sunday was a day for rest and reflection. There was to be no academic work, no exercise and, perhaps most difficult for Edwards, no watching English soccer matches on television.
Soon his own faith turned out to be every bit the equal of his parents' faith, and as Edwards gradually developed into a world-class triple jumper, he kept the sabbath separate: no training and no competitions.
"It wasn't exactly my religion that kept me from competing," he said recently. "It was more that I wanted to keep Sunday different."
Edwards faces no such choice between God and competition at the world track and field championships, which officially opened yesterday in Goteborg, Sweden. The triple jump trials take place today and the finals are on Monday.
But he has made the hard choice in the past. He sat out the 1988 British championships, where the triple jump fell on a Sunday, and had to be named to the Olympic team separately. He sat out the 1991 world championships in Tokyo, even after his agent tried swaying him with the argument that Sunday in Japan would be Saturday in England.
All this was not without local precedent. At the 1924 Summer Olympics, the British sprinter Eric Liddell, a committed Christian who later became one of the subjects of the Oscar-winning film "Chariots of Fire," declined to run in the 100 meters because the qualifying heats fell on a Sunday. Liddell, the favorite to win the 100, ended up switching events and winning the 400.
Unfortunately for Edwards, in these increasingly specialized 90's, the only event he was much good at was the triple jump. But in 1993, he ultimately relented after his fellow Christian and Briton, the 400-meter hurdler Kriss Akabusi, went into retirement. Unlike Edwards, Akabusi had always competed on the sabbath, and Edwards determined that it was now up to him to run with the Christian baton.
"I decided it was my job to be at all the meets to be a Christian witness," said Edwards, who explained in 1993 that he was doing "what I feel God is telling me to do."
His decision would coincide with the best season of his career in which he would win a bronze medal in the world championships and hop, step and jump to a personal best of 17.44 meters (57 feet 2 3/4 inches).
At this stage, Edwards, who holds a physics degree from Durham University, was still moonlighting as a genetic scientist specializing in chromosome analysis at Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle. But on the strength of his 1993 results, he decided to devote all his time to triple jumping: no small decision for a 27-year-old with a wife and infant son to support.
What ensued was disastrous. After a respectable performance at the British championships, he spent the rest of the season feeling sluggish and out of sorts, finishing sixth in the European championships and failing to even break the 16-meter (52-6) barrier at the Grand Prix finals in early September.
Edwards was worried enough to check into a hospital in Middlesex for extensive tests and discovered he was afflicted with the Epstein-Barr virus, one of the causes of mononucleosis.
Relieved at least to have an explanation, he rested until January and soon set off with his family for the Florida State campus in Tallahassee, where the British Olympic Committee has established a training base in preparation for the heat and humidity of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Edwards quickly made friends with several of the locals, particularly Florida State's assistant track coach, Dennis Nobles.
Edwards already had a three-man support team back in England: the longtime coach Carlton Johnson, Peter Stanley and the physiotherapist Norman Anderson. Nobles would become the fourth member of the informal unit, making some technical suggestions and keeping in touch regularly by letter and telephone.
"It's more a friendship than anything else," Nobles said. "I think he kind of surprised himself when he was over here. He was doing some pretty good jumps from short approaches, and I think because of that, he went back to England in March thinking bigger. But I don't think you can ever go into a season after basically a year off thinking you're going to improve by half a meter and set a world record. You just don't do that."
Unfortunately for Willie Banks, the crowd-pleasing American who held the world record for the last decade, Edwards has done just that. And if not for a few ill-timed gusts of wind, Edwards would have obliterated Banks's mark of 58-11 1/2, not merely beaten it by a centimeter.
The first sign the man with the youthful features and streaks of gray in his dark hair was heading toward something exceptional came on June 11, a Sunday of all days, when he set a British national record with a leap of 56-8 1/4. The exceptional came two Sundays later at the European Cup in Villeneuve d'Ascq, France, when Edwards became the first man to go past 60 feet and twice jumped farther than Banks's world mark, only to be kept out of the record books by a persistent wind that was slightly above the 2 meters-per-second (or 4.47 miles per hour) limit.
Nonetheless, his four-jump series -- 58-8 3/4, 60-5 3/4, 58-1 3/4 and 60-4 -- was the most exceptional afternoon in the history of his discipline.
"He was out there where other guys never even dream of going," said Banks, now 39 and director of Olympic Village Athletes' Services for the 1996 Atlanta games.
Until that Sunday, Banks had the longest triple jump in any conditions: a 59-8 1/2 effort in 1988. But that came with a stiff, following wind of 5.2 meters per second. When Edwards popped his 60-5 3/4, the favorable wind was only 2.4 meters per second.
Back in England, Edwards jumped another wind-assisted 59-2. When he finally broke the record for real on July 18 in Salamanca, Spain, with a leap of 59-0, nobody was remotely surprised, not even Edwards, who cheerfully admits that he cannot explain all that has happened to him.
Yes, he has studied and imitated the arm movements of the American Mike Conley, the reigning world champion. Yes, he has improved his jump segment by getting more extension with his legs before landing. Yes, he is in robust health and high spirits. But 60-5 3/4?
"People probably think I'm on drugs or something," he said, laughing to make sure everyone knew he was not. "I just don't know. Something is fundamentally different in me before my virus and after my virus. Maybe I needed a good rest, but in my mind all the little things just don't add up to the big thing. I still don't consider myself as talented an athlete as some of the others."
Edwards's personal best in the 100 meters is 10.7 seconds, and now he is losing little of that velocity as he breaks into his hop. Other jumpers almost seem to stick in the track as they land. Edwards seems to gather strength from his landings, flowing seamlessly from phase to phase.
"It's the double jump, not the triple jump," Conley reportedly cracked after seeing how far Edwards had flown on his hop and step alone in Salamanca.
Of course, however far Edwards flies, in his mind, he will not be jumping alone. "I thank God for what has happened," he said last week.
Informed of that comment, Banks paused, chuckled and then said, "You know what; that may be the only explanation for someone being able to jump that far."
Photo: Jonathan Edwards about to land a triple jump at a meet in Salamanca, Spain, on July 18. Edwards would set the world record in the event that afternoon. (Reuters)(pg.27)