First World Record 1988
On 8 September 1988, at a meet held in Salamanca, Spain – just four days before the opening ceremonies of the 1988 Summer Olympics – he set a world record of 2.43 metres (7 feet 11 and three-quarter inches). However, Sotomayor was again denied the chance to compete in the Olympics in Seoul due to another Cuban boycott of the Olympics: only seven nations, most of them small and with poor economies, boycotted the 1988 games, including North Korea, Albania, Cuba and Ethiopia. Sotomayor's leap of 2.43 broke, by one centimeter, the record of 2.42 set the previous summer (30 June 1987) by Sweden's Patrik Sjöberg in Stockholm.
Read more about this topic: Javier Sotomayor
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