Our world champion high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim and Ukraine’s Bohdan Bondarenko became the first two jumpers in the past two decades to clear 2.42m in the high jump, at the New York meeting in the United States, one leg of the athletics Diamond League.
Bondarenko, the 2013 world champion, cleared 2.42m on his first attempt, while Barshim, the World Championships runner-up, needed three attempts to do so.
The last athlete to clear 2.42m was Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor, the world record holder, on 5 June 1995.
The world record stands at 2.45m, set by Sotomayor on 27 July 1993.
Bondarenko and Barshim attempted to break the world record at the New York meeting by clearing 2.46m, but without success.
Barshim, the London 2012 Olympic bronze medallist, had cleared 2.41m to finish first at the Rome meeting, the fourth leg of the Diamond League, a few days earlier.
