Jaak Uudmäe


Jaak Uudmäe is a retired Estonian triple jumper and long jumper who competed for the Soviet Union. He was the gold medalist at the 1980 Summer Olympics. He set a personal best of in his Olympic victory – a mark which remains the Estonian record.
In 1979 and 1980 Uudmäe was acknowledged as Estonia's Sportsman of the Year. In 1980 Uudmäe's coach Jaan Jürgenson was nominated as the USSR Coach of the Year and Jaak himself as USSR Master Sportsman of the Year. He was the runner-up at the 1979 Soviet Spartakiad, behind Gennadiy Valyukevich.
His sons Jaanus Uudmäe and Jaak Joonas Uudmäe are also both long/triple jumpers.

1980 Olympics

His victory at the 1980 Summer Olympics was adjudicated by an all-Soviet panel. Some observers later claimed that the bronze medalist João Carlos de Oliveira and fifth-placer Ian Campbell both produced multiple jumps longer than Uudmäe's, though the Soviet judges ruled all these as fouls, to protestations from the athletes and questioning by several observers. Uudmäe's longest jump was also ruled as a foul. In 2015, Athletics Australia made a request to the International Association of Athletics Federations to investigate the matter and review the outcome.

International competitions

National titles