Walter Davis (athletics)

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Medal record
Men’s athletics
World Championships
Gold	2005 Helsinki	Triple jump
Bronze	2007 Osaka	Triple jump

Walter Davis (born July 2, 1979 in Lafayette, Louisiana) is an African American athlete competing in the triple jump and occasionally in the long jump.

Davis won the 2005 World Indoor & 2006 World Outdoor Championships.

However, his greatest claim to fame may have occurred in the 2004 Olympic Trials, where in the later rounds of the final he put in an extraordinary jump, during the landing phase of which he lost control, with his foot hitting the sand a significant distance behind his rump, which is the usual area of the body which lands first in the sand. The jump had to be measured from first body contact with the sand, the foot, which was an official 17.63m. The distance of the jump to where his rump landed in the sand was at least 18m from video analysis.

Video footage of this jump is accessible here :

http://www.polevaultpower.com/media/video/davis57-10-25.avi

It is hoped that biomechanicists or aeronautical engineers or other physicists with access to sophisticated trajectory software, studying this video will eventually provide an accurate estimate of the distance of the rump landing from the take-off board