Oslo: Qatar's Mutaz Essa Barshim broke the Bislett Stadium’s 28-year-old high jump record of 2.37m on Thursday at the fifth meet of the IAAF Diamond League season.
Qatar’s baby-faced assassin did the deed, having teetered on the brink of an earlier-than-hoped for exit with two failures at 2.35m before clearing at the last before setting the new meeting record of 2.38m at his second attempt, thus bettering the mark set in 1989 by the only man who has jumped higher than him, Cuba’s world record holder at 2.45m, Javier Sotomayor.
“That was the target,” said Barshim.
“We came for 2.38. So mission completed. At the beginning I was feeling a little bit sleepy, but after 2.33 I woke up and came into the right rhythm.
“Also my coach was happy and I especially, because I took this record off Sotomayor after 28 years. Our plan works, we go step by step. I’m blessed for every opportunity I can get.”
Barshim’s mark is also the best recorded so far this year, and a clear marker of the former world indoor champion’s intention of earning a first outdoor global championship at this summer’s World Championships London.
The Qatari had the event won with a first time clearance of 2.32m, with Ukraine’s 2013 world champion Bohdan Bondarenko, in his first competition of the season, relatively content to settle for second with 2.29m, four centimetres clear of Canada’s Olympic champion, Derek Drouin.
