Ruling on ‘C’ long jump clarified

Information in a Monday story on the Eastern Maine Class C track and field championship meet needs to be clarified. In the story, John Bapst of Bangor athlete Regan LeBlanc said that he logged a jump of 18 feet, 2 inches which would have given him fifth place, but the official wrote down 17-2, which knocked LeBlanc out of contention.

However, the head long jump official wrote down 17-21/4 because that was what LeBlanc jumped. The head official initially read the tape wrong and verbally announced “18 feet, 21/4 inches.” At the same time, the official actually holding his finger on the tape at the mark corrected the head official and pointed out that LeBlanc jumped 17 feet, not 18. Unfortunately, the head official did not loudly announce the correction for all to hear and LeBlanc and the other athletes walked away thinking the jump was 18-2.

The meet progressed without the officials wanting to interrupt the girls long jump, but the referee, head official and official marking the tape did confer later. The officials remembered the correction to the official marking, 17-21/4.