Three days after he turned the heads of not just athletics fans but many beyond, Juan Miguel Echevarria backed up his performance in Sweden with one of high-level consistency at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava on Wednesday.
On Sunday, the 19-year-old Cuban - the reigning indoor world champion - leapt an incredible 8.83m at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm.
Echevarria's effort was good enough to win the competition but the wind of 2.1 m/s was just over the legal limit for record purposes. Still, it went down as the longest jump in any conditions since 1995.
In the Czech Republic last night he completed a feat last done before he was born.
With his opening jump of 8.40m, he broke the 20-year-old meeting record of compatriot Ivan Pedroso. From there, it would get better.
He followed that up with a jump of 8.54m - a new personal best. It would not last long.
In the third round, he entered the all-time top ten list of competitors for the event with an effort of 8.66m. It was also the longest ever jump by a teenager, beating Carl Lewis's 8.62m from 1991.
In the fifth round, he against jumped to 8.54m becoming the first athlete to record three jumps of 8.50m or longer in a competition since Pedroso in 1997.
Echevarria easily won the competition in Ostrava, finishing 35cm ahead of world champion Luvo Manyonga.
"Being the world leader is strange to me because I’m still so young," told the IAAF website after the event.
"I think I have a lot more ahead of me. People are already asking about breaking the world record. I can’t say if that can happen this year or in the coming ones, but I believe it is possible though."
Given his youth, it would be more surprising if Echevarria doesn't break Mike Powell's 8.95m 1991 world record than if he does.
