Briefly answer the following:
Explain the purpose of placing a landing mat or sand pit in high jump events.
Answer variants:
acceleration
injury
brightness
time
force
velocity
density
When the athlete falls onto a soft mat or sand, the taken for their velocity to reduce to zero is increased (compared to falling on a hard surface). By Newton's second law, for the same change in , a longer time results in a smaller . A smaller acceleration means a smaller is exerted on the athlete's body. This significantly reduces the risk of upon landing.