BBT is the acronym of the High Jump Corporation, which stands for Bondarenko, Barshim and Tamberi, who are also known as the Thin, the Rush and the Beauty.
It will be a clash between three crowned heads, holders of a good number of belts. Bohdan, an Ukrainian jumper from Charkiy, once named Kharkov, is the 2013 world champion, the reigning European champion and the European record holder. Mutaz, who was born in Doha, Q bn atar, won the olympic bronze medal, the world silver in Moscow, the world indoor title in Sopot 2014; he is the record holder of such a big continent like Asia and holds the second best performance in history behind Javier Sotomayor, who is becoming an Icarus as time is going by. Gianmarco from Offagna is the Italian record holder and very frequently jumps over big heights. He followed in the footsteps of the “Rush” after a thrilling World Indoor Championships competition in Portland. For fans, that night was worthy of those spent waiting for the pictures of a boxing match: The final winning sharp right of this super middle-weight athlete, who does not look to weigh 77 kg He has more or less the same weight as another young athlete, who loved to entertain the crowd more than half a century ago. He was named Cassius Marcellus Clay at that time.
In these last seasons the high jump has offered an impressive collection of jump over the 2.40m barrier, an achievement which can give significance to a sports career. Taking only the outdoor competition into account, this barrier was broken three times in 2013 (two by Bondarenko, one by Barshim) and twelve times in 2014 (five by Bondarenko, four by Barshim, one by Ivan Ukhov, Derek Drouin and Andyi Protsenko), when the world record held by the “Flying Cuban” looked to be in danger in every big event.
The trend is now on the decline. Barshim produced the only clearance over 2.40m in 2015. Nobody has jumped over this height this season yet. To make up for it, there is an increasing number of jumpers, who has made a significant or even dramatic improvement. This is the case of Tamberi who cleared 2.37m outdoors and 2.38m indoors, of Erik Kynard, of Zhang Guowei, of Syrian Ghazal, who surprisingly cleared 2.36m. The world-class elite has increased its average level by at least three centimetres.
We just have to focus our attention on the Rome Olympic Stadium and the Golden Gala. Before Barshim’s big jump the the height of 2.38m had become the limit, which did not look to be under threat in Rome or on Italian soil. The first jumper in history able to clear this height was Kirghistan’s Igor Paklin, who achieved this feat in 1986 in Rieti, one year after clearing 2.41m in Kobe, when he added one cm to the unexpected record set by little-known Igor Povarnityn, who had a prominent Adam’s Apple. He was followed up by Patrick Sjoberg, Paklin and Gennady Avdeyenko, who all cleared 2.38m, at the 1987 World Championships in Rome. Sjoberg cleared 2.38 at the European Indoor Championships in Genua during the celebrations for the 500 anniversary of the Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Ukraine’s Andriy Sokolovskiy finally cleared 2.38m at the Rome Golden Gala.
That competition was marked by the best overall result ever achieved in the history of the meeting. Behind Sokolovskiy, the Swedish small star Stefan Holm and Czech Republic’s Jaroslav Baba cleared 2.36m and Russia’s Yaroslav Rybakov jumped 2.33. For Sokolovskiy it was the best result of his career. Apart from a fifth place at the Olympic Games in Athens and a second place at the World Indoor Championships in Lisbon, Andriy has not achieved much else in his career. The first five placers of the 2000 edition offered a slightly lower average: Vyacheslav Voronin cleared 2.35m (a few weeks later the Russian jumper went on to join the exclusive club of jumpers able to jump 2.40m), the same height achieved by Canada’s Mark Boswell. On their shoulders Israeli’s Konstantin Matusevich cleared 2.33m finishing ahead of US Charlie Austin and another Canadian Kwaku Boateng, who both cleared 2.31m. The athletes with the Maple Leaf have a solid tradition and reigning world champion Drouin is showing that.
Twenty years ago Javier Sotomayor reached big heights in one of his best seasons (in which he produced eight performances at 2.40 or higher indoors or outdoors) and improved the meeting record with 2.37m after a tight battle against Norweagian Steinar Hoen, who cleared 2.34m. Looking back in time the past meeting records were set by Paklin with 2.34m in 1986 and by very tall and thin German jumper Dietmar Mogenburg, who became the first jumper to clear 2.30m in the first edition of the Golden Gala.
All these past achievements were swept aside by Persic Gulf’s talented star Barshim, who set the stadium and meeting and the all-comers record. The Italian Half-Beard jumper is now challenging this height, which is slightly less than eight feet.
Giorgio Cimbrico
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