Tonight, our Olympic champion Mutaz Essa Barshim contests the high jump final at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, in an exciting duel among the world’s best 15 jumpers for a place on the podium and to repeat his achievement at the London 2012 Olympics, where he won bronze. Barshim appears in Rio more focused, in excellent shape and determined to achieve something new to add to our record of achievements and raise Qatar’s Olympic haul, currently standing at four bronze medals across our Olympic history. Olympic champion Mutaz Essa Barshim had qualified for the final by topping his first group at a height of 2.29m, level with ten other athletes. Our champion Barshim’s attempts began at a height of 2.17m, before his attempts continued successfully at 2.22m, 2.26m and 2.29m. Barshim is currently the world’s best jumper with a personal best of 2.43m, two centimetres short of the world record that has stood since 1993, held by the famous Cuban Javier Sotomayor, who cleared 2.45m at a meeting in Salamanca, Spain. Barshim’s record is laden with medals and titles — he is the 2010 World Youth champion in Canada, runner-up at the 2013 World Championships in Moscow, and holder of the 2014 World Indoor Championships gold in Poland. Also qualifying for the final were the leading contenders among the 15 finalists, led by Ukraine’s Bohdan Bondarenko, Canada’s Derek Drouin, Britain’s Robbie Grabarz, American Erik Kynard, Donald Thomas of the Bahamas, and Syria’s Ghazal.
Second mission — a different challenge
Champion Mutaz Essa Barshim’s second Olympic mission begins differently this time after the London 2012 Olympics, where the “falcon” Barshim gained more experience and ideal exposure against the biggest names in high jump. Barshim now possesses strength and physical agility alongside mental toughness to face his rivals at various heights, and Mutaz enjoyed an exceptional season (2014-2015), recording a remarkable jump of 2.43m that nearly broke the world record of the legendary Sotomayor, which has stood for more than two decades at 2.45m.
A normal preparation
Barshim went through a normal recovery training session led by his world-class coach, the Swedish coach of Polish origin, Stanislav, with medical supervision from Dr Mark, the physiotherapist, where Mutaz performed relaxation exercises and jumps from various heights in order to maintain his high jump rhythm, and coach Stanislav took care to shield Barshim from any outside distractions to ensure the champion had maximum focus and readiness for today’s battle.
Predictions are difficult.
Predictions are always difficult in the technically and tactically complex sport of high jump, which demands extraordinary muscular, physical and mental coordination from the athlete to achieve the required heights in every single attempt, with the possibility that any jumper may spring a surprise by raising the bar to a higher ceiling — always a risky attempt, but sometimes necessary to break the rhythm and pile pressure on rivals. In any case, in a matter of hours Rio will reveal who takes Rio 2016 gold, among the elite of the world’s jumpers led by Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim and his challengers Ukraine’s Bohdan Bondarenko, Canada’s Derek Drouin, Britain’s Robbie Grabarz, American Erik Kynard, Donald Thomas of the Bahamas, in addition to Syria’s champion Ghazal.
An exciting atmosphere in the high jump
The high jump competition featured 44 jumpers in a highly competitive and thrilling contest lasting two hours, split into two groups of 22 athletes each, with the jumpers’ attempts alternating between success and failure amid continuous encouragement from the crowd and the technical and administrative staff, with everyone striving hard to win one of the 15 qualifying places out of the 44 participants, as 29 athletes bowed out after failing the qualifying test.
Champion Barshim: ‘I hope to honour my country’
Olympic jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim expressed his satisfaction with the result of the high jump qualifying round at the Rio 2016 Olympics, affirming that things went smoothly and God granted him success in all his attempts, topping his first group, and noting that things would be different in the final and would require more focus and a different level of effort from him so that he could, God willing, continue his journey towards a leading position, adding that predictions are difficult in the world of sport or in high jump, and that he would not underestimate the rest of the competitors, most of whom are champions who came to Rio to achieve results worthy of them as ambassadors for their countries at the Olympics. Mutaz added: “The odds remain even until the scoreboard reveals the identity of the winners,” stressing that he hoped to honour his country on this historic evening and to make everyone happy by achieving a new feat worthy of the reputation of Qatari sport and the mother of all sports for Qatar’s national team, and asking everyone to pray that God grants him success in his Olympic mission.
Our sprinter Ogunode seeks to make amends in the 200m
Today our sprinter Femi Ogunode returns to Olympic competition once more to break out of the frustration of missing out on qualifying for the final of the 100m, the race of the century. Ogunode has turned the page on the past and is preparing to contest the 200m heats, armed with the will and determination to overcome the mistake of the 100m, and awaits a fierce battle among the leading sprinters aspiring to snatch a semi-final qualifying spot, with his chances remaining alive, especially given that he has the ability and qualifications to compete with the rest of the world’s sprinters.
Al Seify and Diri to compete in tomorrow’s qualifying rounds
Tomorrow, our national team champions Ashraf Al Seify and his teammate Ahmed Diri will contest the qualifying rounds of the hammer throw and javelin throw respectively, in their first giant Olympic challenge. The promising Ashraf Al Seify is the 2012 Barcelona and 2015 USA World Youth champion, while Ahmed Diri holds the 2016 Poland World Youth Championships title, and both champions’ chances are considerable in their first world-level participation at Olympic level.
Tonight, 25 gold medals to be awarded, five of them in athletics
The 12th day of competition at the Rio Olympics, which continues until 21 August, will see 25 gold medals awarded, as follows: athletics (5) — 110m hurdles, high jump and triple jump (men), 1500m and discus throw (women) / boxing (1): 60kg (men) / canoe-kayak (4): canoe single 1000m and kayak single 1000m (men), kayak single 200m and kayak double 500m (women) / cycling (3): keirin (men), sprint and points race omnium (women) / artistic gymnastics (3): horizontal bar and parallel bars (men), vault (women) / weightlifting (1): over 105kg (men) / Greco-Roman wrestling (2): 66kg and 98kg (men) / open water swimming (1): 10km marathon (men) / diving (1): 3m springboard (men) / synchronised swimming (1): duet free routine / table tennis (1): team (women) sailing (2): Finn (men) and Nacra 17 (mixed)
