Is This the Most Storied Sporting Event in the World?
How have we never heard of ‘The Jump from the Old Bridge’?
Earlier this week in the Bosnian city of Mostar, throughout the day, local men and women threw themselves from a bridge. They flipped and dove straight into chilly water from 82 feet up, while thousands watched from the bank ooh’ing and ah’ing. At night, those spectators lit torches, glowing red, and the men and women kept diving. When it was all over, there were two victors: a local won the category for feet-first jumps, and a man from Montenegro won for his head-first dives.
They were the champions of the most storied sporting event you’ve never heard of: Welcome to the 456th annual Jump from the Old Bridge of Mostar.
Yep. 456.
To understand the competition, you need to understand the bridge. The city of Mostar wouldn’t exist without the bridge. In the 16th century, it was simply made of wood, connected to either side with chains. When travelers approached it, they hesitated before taking a step. Some just turned around. Supposedly, it swayed so much that people threw up over the sides, claiming sea sickness.
But many had to cross it. It was maybe the most important piece of infrastructure in the entire region. It connected the Balkans with the Adriatic Sea.
The Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent decided in 1557 that something had to be done. Such an important bridge should look important too. His name was “Magnificent,” after all. He commissioned his great architect, Mimar Hayruddin, to construct a replacement that would be known as “Stari Most,” which translates to “Old Bridge.”
Hayruddin was a student of a man one historian described as being, “the Michelangelo of Ottoman architecture,” and with this assignment from the Sultan, Hayruddin wanted to establish himself as a master too. He planned to span the Neretva River with a single arch made of stone, nearly one hundred feet long and 13 feet wide. It took him nine years to complete it. On the final day of construction, when the keystone was scheduled to drop into place, Hayrudding looked out and saw a structure so large, so technically complex, that even he assumed it would never stand. Before leaving home that day, Hayrudding prepared a shroud. He assumed the whole thing would teeter, then collapse, and he would be put to death on the spot.
But the bridge stood. It stood that day, and it stood as the Ottoman Empire rose and fell. It stood through two World Wars. Through earthquakes. Through dictators.
And all along, people dove.
It started in 1664—at least that’s when they started keeping record of them. It became a tradition; boys aged 16 years-old jumped from the daunting height as a rite of passage. Some never stopped, training to do tricks, to perfect a dive. Eventually, things formalized into an annual competition held on the final days of July.
The highest dive at the Olympics is 32 feet tall. The bridge is nearly three times that height.
They only stopped jumping one time. In 1993, during the Bosnian Civil War, Croat forces wanted to target the bridge due to its powerful symbolism. They shelled it repeatedly. And the bridge collapsed.
But when the guns quieted, the city started rebuilding. By 2004, the bridge was completely reconstructed. The original pieces line the banks, and if you visit in late in July, you can sit and admire the diving.
Let’s hope they never stop jumping again.
🏴 It’s coming home! What’s not to love about the history-making, game-changing win by the English Women’s National Team? They just might have had the greatest postgame press conference of all-time.
🏟️ We say all the time that stadiums are like cathedrals. In this superb piece for The Ringer, Dan Moore examines how, 30 years after its construction, Baltimore’s Camden Yards changed the city—and sports.
👑 Honus Wagner, meet LeBron James. ESPN’s Dan Hajducky and Tom VanHaaren tell the hard-to-believe story of the most sought after sports card in the world.
🏀 Han Xu is unlike any player to ever make the WNBA. But just how unbelievable is the 6’10” sharpshooter? Howard Megdal of FiveThirtyEight investigates.
🌠 We get teary eyed every time we see ESPN and the MakeAWish Foundation’s annual tradition of helping children with a critical illness bring their sports dreams to life. Watch this year’s touching videos here.
