The high jump is a track and field athletics event in which competitors must jump over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without the aid of certain devices. In its modern most practiced format, auxiliary weights and mounds have been used for assistance; rules have changed over the years. It has been contested since the Olympic Games of ancient Greece. Over the centuries since, competitors have introduced increasingly more effective techniques to arrive at the current form. Javier Sotomayor (Cuba) is the current men's record holder with a jump of 2.45 metres set in 1993, the longest standing record in the history of the men's high jump. Stefka Kostadinova (Bulgaria) has held the women's world record at 2.09 metres since 1987, also the longest-held record in the event.
Read more about High Jump: Rules, History, Declaring The Winner
Famous quotes containing the words high and/or jump:
“In rhetoric, this art of omission is a chief secret of power, and, in general, it is proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Young men all of us—we’ve got to be. You know why? I’ll give you two good reasons. We jump out of planes, and guys shoot at us.”
—Alvah Bessie, Ranald MacDougall, and Lester Cole. Raoul Walsh. Captain Nelson (Errol Flynn)