Carl Lewis ranked number one, while Lewis slipped to number three, having lost more races than he won. He even seemed vulnerable in the long jump, an event he did not lose in 1986, or the year before, though he competed sparingly. Lewis ended up ranked second behind Soviet Robert Emmiyan, who had the longest legal jump of the year at . At the 1987 World Championships in Athletics in Rome, Lewis skipped the 200 m to focus on his strongest event, the long jump, and made sure to take all his attempts. This was not to answer critics from the 1984
Barrel jumping part of ABC's Wide World of Sports starting in the 1960s. Following the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, double Olympic speed skating gold medalist Irving Jaffee, took a job as Winter Sports Director at the Borscht Belt entertainment mecca Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel. One of his innovations was to hold the World Barrel Jumping Championships. When his friend Roone Arledge began producing Wide World of Sports, it became a staple, first broadcast on January 14, 1962. It turned out to be a natural made for TV event years before Evel Knievel would gain attention for distance jumping objects like