By Mark Staniforth, PA Sport

Bob Beamon tore through the thin air of Mexico City and landed in the land of Olympic legends.

A talented if erratic 22-year-old, Beamon had been among the favourites to win gold in the 1968 long-jump competition.

But nobody, least of all the unassuming American, could have predicted what was going to happen as he limbered up for his first jump in the finals.

After that first jump, his opponents gave up.

Britain's defending champion Lyn Davies said: "I can't go on. What's the point?"

Russian Ter Ovanesyan, the previous joint-world record holder, admitted: "Compared to this jump, we are all children."

Beamon jumped two-and-a-half inches over 29 feet, shattering the previous world record of 27 feet, four-and-three-quarter inches.

He held his head in his hands and shook it in disbelief when he was told the official distance.

Nobody would even clear 28 feet for 12 more years, and Beamon's world record stood until it was beaten by Mike Powell in 1991.

Even Beamon himself could not live up to it. In his second round, he cleared 26 feet four-and-a-half inches. He would never even jump over 27 feet again.

For Beamon, the jump was a turning-point. "If I had the interest as I did prior to Mexico City, I probably would have gone further," Beamon said.

"But my interests changed."

Instead, Beamon began to channel his energy back into helping the disadvantaged communities in which he, too, had once battled to survive. He graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso in 1970 and became a social worker.

Beamon had grown up, alone, in the Queens area of New York. His father was in jail and his mother died when he was a baby. He did not learn to read until he was 15.

He was spotted by an athletics talent scout who gradually chiselled the raw talent into a man with medal-winning capability. Beamon was second in the 1967 Pan-American Games and was an American champion outdoors in 1967 and 1968.

Now, Beamon helps similarly afflicted children in his adopted home town of Miami.

He inspires them with the story of his rise from from the ghettos to the glory, and of the day man learned how to fly.

"Now I want to win gold medals for other parts of life," he said.