GREECE U.S. triple threat in triple jump

Kenta Bell, Melvin Lister and Walter Davis carry the hopes in the event.
GEORGIOUPOLI, Greece (AP) -- Kenta Bell has jumped at least 57 feet in 10 consecutive meets. Melvin Lister uncorked a 58-footer at the U.S. Olympic trials. Walter Davis might be the most athletically gifted of the three.
The United States is back in the triple jump, a competition that at its best, "may be the most beautiful event on the track," Bell said.
"The triple jump is just a power ballet," Bell said, borrowing a phrase used by U.S. gold medalist Kenny Harrison in 1996. "You hit the ground and boom, you're gone. For that one brief second, you defy gravity. Then, just when everybody else thinks you're about to come down, you find a way to suspend yourself just a little bit longer.
"Then, when you touch down, you're gone again, even higher and farther than the one before."
Through the years
Initially known as the hop, step and jump, the triple jump has been a part of the Olympics since the first games of the modern era, in Athens in 1896.
Americans were a power in the event from 1984 through 1996. Al Joyner and Mike Conley finished 1-2 in 1984, then Conley and Charlie Simpkins were 1-2 in 1992. Harrison won the gold, and Conley was fourth, in 1996. Then came the big fade out.
"The theory that we've come up with, in both the long and the triple jump, is that you had so many top-level athletes competing for a long time, and therefore put the ceiling on those trying to emerge up," said Conley, now executive director of elite programs for USA Track & amp; Field.
The next generation is emerging now.
"There's a pendulum that I'm trying to make swing back," Bell said. "Somebody has to start the movement. Somebody has to light the fire and make this thing go back the way it's supposed to be because we've got too much talent in the U.S. to be getting beat by people who are less talented than us without as many resources."
The 27-year-old Bell has the confidence to match his consistency.
Asked if Sweden's Christian Olsson -- the reigning world champion -- is the jumper to beat, he said, "That's what they try to tell me."
"This year he's winning, but he's not having the best year of his life," Bell said. "I'm having the best year of my life. I'm consistently jumping farther than everybody else every time out. In my opinion, I feel like it makes me the favorite. If I was a betting man, I'd bet on the most consistent guy."
Electrifying
Consistency has not been Lister's forte. The 26-year-old former Arkansas jumper works full time at a Circuit City store in Fayetteville. No one considered him much of a threat until he showed up at the U.S. trials in Sacramento and jumped four personal bests, capped by an eye-popping 58 feet, 4 inches. It was 2 feet farther than Lister had jumped to date and the best mark in the world this year, breaking the trials record set by Conley in 1992.
Davis, the youngest of the trio at 25, also qualified for the U.S. team in the long jump.
Davis was the U.S. champion in the triple jump in 2002 and the long jump in 2003. His triple jump best is 57-81/2.