06 Dec 2019
Madrid, 5 December 2019. The Legendary Cuban athlete and high jump world record holder, Javier Sotomayor believes that Aspire graduate and Qatar star athlete, Mutaz Essa Barshim can better the 2.45m mark he set on 27 July 1993 in Salamanca. That mark remains to date the longest standing record in the history of the men’s high jump and when both Sotomayor and Barshim where in Madrid to pick up awards presented by Spanish newspaper AS, the Cuban said, “from the current high jump athlete l see Barshim as the one who has the greatest chance to better my record,” Sotomayor said.
Mutaz Barshim won the 2019 Arab Athlete of the Year Award, presented by Spanish newspaper AS at a ceremony held in Madrid yesterday, has cleared the second best mark in the history of high jump, at 2.43m set in Brussels in September, 2014 but injured his ankle while attempting a world record jump at 2.46m at the Gyulai Istvan Memorial meet in Hungary where he cleared 2.40m.
“Barshim needs to put the injury thoughts and worries behind him and jump freely and if he does this, he is capable of going beyond my record mark,” said Sotomayor, who was present at the AS Awards yesterday to receive a lifetime recognition award.
Aspire graduate missed out on the rest of the 2018 Athletics season after his injury in July 2018 while attempting to break Sotomayor’s 27-year-old record, but Barshim came back strongly after a long break to retain his world title in front of his home crowd at the 2019 IAAF World Championships in Doha in October.