26 Jun 2018
Doha, 26 June 2018. Aspire Academy graduate and High Jump World Champion Mutaz Barshim of Qatar is on the way to another scintillating Diamond League season showing after winning the first three meeting of the season. Mutaz opened the 2018 Diamond League season with a world leading jump of 2.40m on his way to victory in Doha in May. The next high jump competition was in Eugene, USA and Mutaz took first place again with a winning jump of 2.36m before clearing the same height at Oslo Diamond League meeting to extend his total points to 24 from the first three meetings with five more meetings to go to the end of the season. Danil Lysenko is second on 14 points and Donald Thomas of Bahamas currently lies third on 13 points. The next competition for the high jump athletes is in July 4-5 at the Athletissima Diamond League meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland.
At the latest meeting, the IAAF Diamond League in Oslo, the men’s high jump field saw eight of the top athletes in contest, but ell eyes were on the exciting duel between the 2017 World Athlete of the Year, Barshim and Russia’s Danil Lysenko who won the silver medal at the IAAF Worlds last year.
Only Barshim and Lysenko made it beyond the 2.30 mark as Majd Eddin Ghazal, Marco Fasinotti and Donald Thomas all failed to clear the height. Lysenko cleared the 2.30m mark with ease before Barshim succeeded in his second attempt. The two athletes made it past the 2.33m mark, a new seasonal best for Lysenko. The Russian neutral athlete failed in all his attempts at the height of 2.36 but the Qatari star cleared that height in his first attempt before attempting 2.40m unsuccessfully.