High Jump

How it works

Competitors jump unaided and take off from one foot over a 4m-long horizontal bar. They seek to clear the greatest height without knocking the bar to the ground.

All competitors have three attempts per height, although they can elect to ‘pass’, i.e. advance to a greater height despite not having cleared the current one. Three consecutive failures at the same height, or combination of heights, cause a competitor’s elimination.

If competitors are tied on the same height, the winner will have had the least failures at that height. If competitors are still tied, the winner will have had the least failures across the entire competition. Thereafter, a jump-off will decide the winner.

History

High jump contests were popular in Scotland in the early 19th century, and the event was incorporated into the first modern Olympics Games in 1896.

Of the field events, the High Jump has perhaps undergone the most radical changes of technique. The Eastern Cut-off, Western Roll and Straddle are methods that have been previously used by the world’s elite. However, the Fosbury Flop, which involves going over with the jumper's back to the bar and became possible with the introduction of foam landing beds in the early 1960s before then popularised by the 1968 Olympic champion Dick Fosbury, is now pre-eminent.

Did you know

Built up shoes were used by many top jumpers in 1956 and 1957, with soles of up to 5cm. Yuriy Stepanov, from the Soviet Union, cleared what was then a World record height of 2.16m in 1957 using such footwear but the IAAF banned these shoes the following year.

Gold standard

Russia has supplied three of the past four Olympic Games women’s gold medallists, including London 2012 winner and current World outdoor champion Anna Chicherova, and also the last two Olympic men's champions Andrey Silnov and Ivan Ukhov.