European Long jump record holder Robert Emmiyan is be a distinguished guest at the 2010 European Athletics Championships in Barcelona.

In an exclusive interview to the European Athletics website, Emmiyan, who was elected as the President of the Armenian athletics federation in April, recalls winning at the 1986 European Athletics Championships and his record leap of 8.86m the following year.

Q) Tell us about what happened in Stuttgart at the 1986 European Athletics Championships, when you won the gold medal in the red vest of the former Soviet Union?

A) I worked very hard prior to that competition in Stuttgart, and I was in great shape. I felt that I had a lot of power from the very first jump. In the end I won by a very big margin, jumping 8.41m. My team mate Sergey Layevskiy was the only other man over eight metres, jumping 8.01m. It’s still the Championships record and I’m wondering whether anyone will beat it in Barcelona, as you can imagine, I’ll be watching the Long jump closely.

There were also many Armenians in the stands watching me jump. In fact, there was quite a large Armenian community in Stuttgart who knew that I was Armenian and that night I went out to celebrate with them rather than with others in my Soviet Union team.

When I got home to Armenia after the Championships, that was the time to celebrate with my family and friends at home. They had learnt of my success through the newspapers rather than having watched me live on TV or on the internet as people would nowadays.

Q) What was it like competing for the Soviet Union in this era?

A) For an athlete like me, those were the best of times. The old Soviet-style system of assistance was still in place, you hardly got any money but almost every thing you wanted was provided for you, such as equipment, coaching and training camps. However, the situation politically was getting easier from before. It was the time of Perestroika. We were travelling abroad more and there were fewer restrictions in place. In fact, in 1986 and 1987, we went on several warm weather training camps out of the country, including to France, Italy and Spain.

Q) Tell us about the European record jump, how did that happen?

A) The following winter, after the European Athletics Championships, ahead of the 1987 season, everything just went so well in training. I was faster, stronger. I’d jumped over 8.45m, which was then the European record (set Yugoslavia’s Nenad Stekic set in 1975), in training.

My huge jump of 8.86m in Tsakhkador (a small town at 1750m altitude 50 kilometres north of the Armenian capital Yerevan) was a result of all that. Yes, perhaps the altitude added a little to the distance but it would have still been a fantastic jump at sea level. To be honest, the distance didn’t surprise me. I was confident that sooner or later I could beat Bob Beamon’s world record of what was then 8.90m. I felt unbeatable.

I thought the jump in Tsakhkador was good but that I could still do better. Even after I got a small injury later that summer, I still felt that way, even though I was beaten by Carl Lewis at the World Championships in Rome.

I still jumped 8.53m but I was beaten by an athlete who I saw also had the potential to break the world record so there was no big disappointment, just a determination to work even harder and I was still convinced that on the right day I could jump over nine metres. I can say this now looking back to those years.

Q) So what happened after the end of the 1987 season?

A) The sensation (that Emmiyan could break the world record) continued through the winter of 1987 and during 1988. I was doing some huge jumps in training and was in great shape.

All that changed with the Armenian earthquake in December 1988. I lost my family home, my father and other members of my family. I was still able to train and was still in good shape.

I never wanted to lose but I lose that feeling that I was capable of anything. I continued to jump over 8.20m and 8.30m, in fact, I jumped more than eight metres for 15 years and I’m very proud of my consistency, but there is so much about long jumping and athletics that is mental and that was what was affected that day of the earthquake. I was, of course, worried about my mother and I certainly had some psychological problems after the earthquake. My life and my athletics changed from what it had been before.

Q) What has happened since Armenia became independent in 1991?

A) I was very happy. I have always had a strong identity as an Armenian even when I was competing for the Soviet Union. My family was, and is, Armenian. I lived in Armenia and trained there, when I was an athlete competing for the Soviet Union, never moving permanently to Moscow.

I was lucky that after the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991, I was able to compete for a French club and that was how I made a living and stayed in the sport, because the political situation changed and suddenly things became very tough in Armenia. In Paris, I met my wife, who is also from the Armenian community and now I have two daughters.

I have since been involved in coaching and spent nine years in Qatar from 2000 to 2009. I can say that I had some success because I coached the Qatari record holder and the boy who won at the 2002 World Junior Championships. Since 2009, I have also been a special advisor on the long jump to the French federation and I’ve been helping Salim Sdiri, along with his regular coach. I’ll be in Barcelona at the European Athletics Championships to see him jump and hopefully get a medal.

Q) What do you think about the fact that your European record is still there?

A) At the time, I thought to myself that I would be very happy if I had the record for five years but it’s now been there for 24 years. Another reason why I jumped so far is because I was pushed by Carl Lewis. Mike Powell, who went on to set the existing world record of 8.95m in 1991, was also pushed by Lewis.

Who will break it? Well, there are some talented European jumpers at the moment. When Yago Lamela (from Spain) was jumping well, about a decade ago, I thought he might be the one to challenge my record. There is Germany’s Sebastian Bayer, I have seen his jump at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Torino last year, and it was very impressive. There is also the Frenchmen Sdiri and Gomis, of course. However, although you firstly need the ability to be able to jump very far, you also need a rival and who will push you and the personality to respond.