Highest high jump (male)

On 27 July 1993, Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor leapt 2.45 m (8 ft 0.45 in) in Salamanca, Spain. No one else has ever jumped above 8 ft (2.44 m).

The Unbelievable Heights of the High Jump

The high jump is one of track and field’s classic events. It was one of the 12 disciplines contested at the first modern Olympics in 1896, where it was won by the USA’s Ellery Clark with a leap of 1.80 m (5 ft 10 in). At the 1928 Games in Amsterdam, the high jump was the one of the five events (along with the 100 m, 800 m, 4 x 100 m relay and discus throw) included in the first Olympic women’s athletics programme.

The high jump is notable for the changes in technique that competitors have adopted over the years, pushing the bar higher and higher. In 2024, Yaroslava Mahuchikh broke the women’s high jump world record for the first time in 37 years with a leap of 2.10 m (6 ft 10 in). The current men’s record has stood for 31 years – and shows no sign of falling.

The Evolution of the High Jump World Record

A total of 40 world records in the men’s high jump have been ratified by World Athletics (formerly the IAAF). The first was set on 18 May 1912 by George Horine (USA), who cleared 2.00 m (6 ft 6 in) at the US Olympics trials. American athletes dominated the first 50 years of the event. In the early 1960s, Soviet high jumper Valeriy Brumel broke the world record six times in three years, clearing 2.28 m (7 ft 5 in) before a motorcycle crash impeded his athletics career.

At the 1968 Olympics, however, the event changed forever. A 21-year-old engineering student named Dick Fosbury won gold with an Olympic record of 2.24 m (7 ft 4 in), showcasing a revolutionary new technique in which he leaped backwards over the bar. The “Fosbury Flop” would quickly become the accepted technique in the sport. By the late 1980s, the world record had shot up to 2.42 m (7 ft 11 in).

Javier Sotomayor: The King of the High Jump

Born in Cuba in 1967, Javier Sotomayor was initially scouted for his basketball potential before gravitating towards the high jump. He made his international debut in 1983, at the age of 15, and the following year set a world junior record.

Javier broke the senior world record for the first time on 8 Sep 1988, jumping 2.43 m (7 ft 11 in) in the Spanish city of Salamanca. The following year, he improved his best to 2.44 m (8 ft 0 in) at a meet in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This was the first-ever jump over 8 ft.

In 1992, Javier was able to compete at the Olympics for the first time, taking home the gold medal from Barcelona. The year after, he returned to Spain to make history once more, breaking the world record at the Salamanca Invitational. Astonishingly, he took only four jumps throughout the entire competition, clearing 2.32 m and 2.38 m before soaring over 2.45 m (8 ft 0.45 in) at the second attempt.

Javier continued to dominate the high jump throughout the 1990s, winning two outdoor world championship titles and adding an Olympic silver medal in 2000. His medal record would likely have been even more impressive, had it not been for injury and the Cuban boycotts of the 1984 and 1988 Olympics. But Javier still dominates the record books. As of 2024, half of the 10 highest jumps in history – and all of the top four – belong to him.

Techniques and Training: How Athletes Reach New Heights

From the earliest years of the high jump, competitors have sought new techniques to propel them to greater heights. The earliest jumpers used a simple scissor-kick, often off a straight run-up, which allowed them to land on their feet. Olympic champion George Horine developed a variation known as the Western roll, kicking up with his lead leg and rotating his body after clearing the bar to land facedown.

The Western roll evolved into the straddle, where athletes increased the rotation of the body so that they crossed the bar facedown. This was the standard technique before Dick Fosbury revolutionised the high jump at the 1968 Olympics. He realised that, by leaping backwards and arching over the bar, it was possible to keep his centre of gravity below the bar. 

Fosbury himself never broke the world record. The first high jumper to do so using the Fosbury Flop was the USA’s Dwight Stones, in 1973. But almost everyone who followed did the same – the last jumper to break the record using the straddle was the Soviet Union’s Vladimir Yashchenko, in 1978.

List of the Highest Men’s High Jumps by Athlete

1. Javier Sotomayor (CUB): 2.45 m, 27 Jul 1993
   
   
2. Mutaz Essa Barshim (QAT): 2.43 m, 5 Sep 2014
   
   
3. Patrik Sjöberg (SWE): 2.42 m, 30 Jun 1987
   
   
4. Carlo Thränhardt (FRG): 2.42 m, 26 Feb 1988
   
   
5. Bohdan Bondarenko (UKR): 2.42 m, 14 Jun 2014

The Future of the High Jump

The last years of Javier Sotomayor’s career were clouded in controversy, owing in part to a suspension after a failed drug test in 1999. He retired in 2001. His leap of 2.45 m has remained unbeaten for more than 30 years, and doesn’t look like being toppled any time soon. The closest anyone has come is Qatari high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim, who cleared 2.43 m in 2014. Perhaps it will take a new Dick Fosbury, with another revolutionary change in technique, for Javier’s record to fall.