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.
