Javier Sotomayor

Javier Sotomayor Sanabria (born 13 October 1967) is a Cuban former track and field athlete who specialized in the high jump and is the current world record holder.

Sotomayor was born in Limonar, Matanzas Province on 13 October 1967.

The son of a day-care worker and a sugar factory maintenance man, Sotomayor was first sent to a Cuban sports school as a prospective basketball player because of his height.

At age 14, coaches made him a high jumper and by 19, he was ranked No. 5 in the world.

Sotomayor is engaged to Amaya González, sharing private and professional life.

He has four sons.

One of his sons, Javier Sotomayor García, has also competed in the high jump.

Sotomayor was only 14 when he first cleared 2 metres and by the end of 1983 he had a best of.

After Cuban boycotts of the Olympics in 1984 and 1988 and an injury in 1996 cost him chances at additional Olympic medals, he won the silver medal at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

He then set the junior world record on 19 May 1984 by clearing at a meet held in Havana.

He was not able to go to Los Angeles for the 1984 Olympics due to the boycott by Cuba (and most communist nations).

In 1985 he took silver in the World Indoor Championships in Paris, with a best jump of on 19 January, and then improved his personal best two months later outdoors in Havana, with a jump of on 20 March 1985.

He continued to improve the following year with a best jump of at a meet in Santiago de Cuba on 23 February 1986.

In addition, he won three straight titles at the Pan American Games from 1987 to 1995.

He is regarded as the best high jumper of all time.

He won his first international title in 1987, at the Pan American Games, and established a new personal best of at a meet in Athens, Greece on 20 June 1987.

Sotomayor's leap of broke, by one centimeter, the record of set the previous summer (30 June 1987) by Sweden's Patrik Sjöberg in Stockholm.

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.

However, Sotomayor was again denied the chance to compete in the Olympics in Seoul due to another Cuban boycott of the Olympics.

Germany's Carlo Thränhardt, who had set the indoor record of one year earlier (26 February 1988) in Berlin, finished fifth at Budapest with a jump of.

He cleared eight feet twice, the first time with 2.44m in 1989 in Sant Juan.

Sotomayor is a two-time gold medallist at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics, and also won two silver medals at the competition.

At the IAAF World Indoor Championships he won four gold medals between 1989 and 1999.

Sotomayor twice increased the world record, to on 29 July 1989, in the Central American and Caribbean Championships, held in San Juan and to the current record of in Salamanca on 27 July 1993.

The July 1989 record of 2.44 m, which he cleared on his second attempt, was a historic jump for Imperial-measure fans, as that was the first jump over 8 feet.

After setting the record at in July 1989, Sotomayor became inconsistent the following year.

Sotomayor set the current world indoor record of in Budapest on 4 March 1989.

He broke the record during the 1989 IAAF World Indoor Championships, clearing on his first attempt (and fifth jump overall).

At this competition, Sotomayor was one of four men to clear, at which point he stood in third place, trailing Dietmar Mögenburg (Germany) and Dalton Grant (Great Britain) who each succeeded on their first attempts, while Sotomayor and Patrik Sjöberg (Sweden) each needed two tries.

In Budapest, he took his first jump of the competition at, passed at , missed his initial try at then cleared on his second attempt; made a huge first attempt clearance at ; passed at ; then had the bar raised for a record attempt at , clearing on his first try, just brushing the bar with the back of his thighs on the way down.

He missed much of the 1990 outdoor season after surgery to remove scar tissue in his knee and heel.

Competing before an adoring Cuban public at the Pan American Games in Havana on Saturday 10 August 1991, Sotomayor defeated his principal rival, American Hollis Conway, with a jump of.

He then thrilled the crowd by having the bar raised 10 cm to a new world record of, but in each of his three attempts he jumped into the bar, striking it with his shoulders on the way up each time.

Afterwards he said, "My physical condition is better, but psychologically I am not well prepared."

The 1992 Olympic champion, he was the dominant high jumper of the 1990s; his personal best of makes him the only person ever to have cleared eight feet (2.44 m).

When he was finally able to compete in the Summer Olympics he won the gold medal at the 1992 Olympics and then the silver medal at the 2000 Olympics (after the reversal of a drug suspension for drug usage).

The 1993 record set at the Salamanca Invitational track meet was remarkable in that Sotomayor required only four jumps: he took his first jump at, passed at , cleared on his first attempt, then had the bar raised to a record height of , which he missed on his first attempt and then succeeded on his second attempt, lightly brushing the bar.

Videos of his record-setting leap show his unique, galloping approach with two elongated strides in the middle of his 14-step run, and a powerful left leg take-off as he pumps both of his arms: he begins his approach with three short steps, builds up speed, then takes exaggerated strides on steps 8 and 9, and then re-accelerates over his last five strides.

After setting the record in Salamanca, Sotomayor told reporters, "I wanted to set the record here because it is a small city in which I feel like I am in Cuba. The people recognize me in the street and ask how I'm doing, the children surround me and I find myself in a good mental state."

He retired in 2001.