Getting settled in tonight at the track I went for a little walk about to look at the positions. When I got over to the long jump area I couldn’t believe my eyes. An old friend, athlete and my namesake was sitting in the crowd. Mike Powell, the long jumper, and I go back a ways, we traveled around Europe for some years on the European track circuit stopping in another city every few days. Him jumping and me shooting pics. We would always swap business cards so he could pose as an international jets-setting photographer, as he would put it, and I could pretend to be an Olympian. I think I got the better deal there. Many times we’d show up to hotels only to find one of our reservations had been canceled. And I was awakened on more than one occasion by fans looking for him. They were very confused when I answered with my English accent. I ended up shooting him in Tokyo’91 World Champs breaking Bob Beamon’s 1968 long jump record, the longest-standing record on the book at that time. The pictures where used on the cover and inside of Sports Illustrated, getting, as Steve Fine the Director of Photography at SI said, the best photo credit in sports. Mike Powell, photo by Mike Powell. Which as it happened actually became a jeopardy question, can you believe…Anyhoo, it was nice to see him again and joke about the name.

 

The 100m is a crazy event, all the photographers at this event are trying to pre-visualize what’s going to happen, arms up at the line, 10meters past the lines. Jubo all the way around the bend. Remotes are set to the wishes in photographers heads. And you know what happens the guy that wins hasn’t read your script and he does just what he wants. It’s freakin’ brilliant. That element of the unknown is what I like. It can bite you on the bum or reward you with the gold. You never know ‘til it’s over.