Mutaz Barsham

Mutaz Essa Barsham (معتز عيسى برشم; born 24 June 1991) is a Qatari track and field athlete who competes in the high jump and is the current Olympic Champion (2020).

He is also the former World Champion and second highest jumper of all-time with a personal best of 2.43.

His winning mark at the competition (2.31 m) was a national record and a world-leading mark for junior athletes – and it was also the best jump by a junior since Huang Haiqiang cleared 2.32 m in 2006.

He finished training at ASPIRE in 2009, when his personal best was 2.14 m. In September 2009, he met his new (and current) coach from Poland/Sweden Stanisław "Stanley" Szczyrba who started to train him in Doha.

He has been his coach since and as Barsham said, "He is more than a coach, we are like father and son."

During the summer season in Europe, they spent time at Szczyrba's home in Warsaw, Poland, and they also trained in Sweden so that Barsham did not have to waste time flying to and from Qatar between competitions.

He was the Asian Indoor and World Junior champion in 2010, and won the high jump gold medals at the 2011 Asian Athletics Championships and 2011 Military World Games.

He holds the Asian record in high jump.

Mutaz jumps off his left foot, using the Fosbury Flop technique, with a pronounced backwards arch over the bar, he achieves this by looking over the landing mat.

One of his brothers, Muamer, is also a high jumper.

Barsham was born in Doha in a Sudanese family.

He has five brothers and a sister.

His father was also a track and field athlete, which is why almost all of the Barsham children became active in this sport, except for Meshaal Barsham who later became a football goalkeeper.

Barsham tried running and long jumping in his youth.

He said in an IAAF interview, "I grew up, nothing special, like any kid in Qatar. I joined a club because my father was going to the club training so sometimes he used to take me there with him. I knew athletics because of my father."

He attended an Arabic school in Doha, where he learned to speak English.

Aged 15, he switched to high jump because it looked more fun.

He began training in Doha at the Aspire Academy.

Barsham enjoyed his first international successes in 2010.

He set an indoor Qatari record in Gothenburg in early February with a jump of 2.25 m, and then went on to take the gold medal at the 2010 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships, winning with a clearance of 2.20 m. He was selected to represent Qatar at the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha and his performance of 2.23 m left him in fourteenth place in the qualifying round.

These feats made him the first ever graduate of the ASPIRE Academy competing at the World Championships as well as holding the national record in an Olympic sport.

In May 2010, Barsham won the Arab Athletics Championships for Juniors in Cairo, clearing an outdoor best of 2.23 m, and then went on to secure the continental junior title at the 2010 Asian Junior Athletics Championships.

He went on to win at the 2010 World Junior Championships in Athletics in Moncton, winning with a height of 2.30 m.

He won gold in the Asian Athletics Championships in Kobe after clearing a height of 2.35 m, a new national and championship record.

He continued his good form and won a gold medal at the Military World Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with a 2.28 m clearance.

He made his debut on the global senior stage at the 2011 World Athletics Championships in Daegu and reached the final, missing a medal on count-back and ranking seventh overall.

He became high-jump champion at the Gulf Council Championships and the Arab Championships before capping off his year with yet another international gold medal at the 2011 Pan Arab Games held on home soil in Doha.

At the Olympics, Barsham originally won the full set of medals with bronze at the London 2012 Summer Olympics, silver at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics, and shared gold at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.

In 2021, his bronze in the London 2012 Summer Olympics was promoted to silver in a three-way tie for second due to disqualification of the original gold medalist.

At the 2012 indoor Asian Championships, held in Hangzhou, China, on 19 February 2012, Barsham won the gold medal and established a new personal best (and national record) of 2.37 m (7'9.25"), breaking the previous championship record of 2.34: it was also the highest indoor jump in the world, to date in 2012. He began jumping at 2.10 and had first try clearances at 2.15, 2.20 and 2.24, before missing once at 2.28, temporarily falling to second place when Chinese jumper Zhang Guowei cleared on his first try. Zhang then failed at 2.31, while Barsham resumed his flawless jumping with first try clears at 2.31, 2.34 and 2.37. He then failed in three attempts at 2.40.

At the 2012 Olympic Games, held in London, United Kingdom, on 7 August, Barsham won the bronze medal with a jump of 2.29, finishing in a 3-way tie for third place with Derek Drouin from Canada and Robert Grabarz from Great Britain.

Barsham suffered a back injury in early 2012 and (later) said he was not healthy at the London Olympics.

The problem was found to be a stress fracture in the fifth (L5) Lumbar vertebrae.

He started with two "smaller" competitions in Sweden, jumping 2.30 on 13 January, and then an (early) world-leading 2.33 (7' 7 3/4") in Växjö on 20 January. He then competed in the invitation-only Moravia High Jump Tour, finishing 2nd (on misses) behind Olympic champion Ivan Ukhov as both jumped 2.30 in Hustopece on 26 January. Then Barsham won the second leg at Trinec on 29 January, tying the meet the record of 2.34. On 3 February, he won the Russian Winter Games in Moscow with yet another world-leading jump of 2.37 – which also tied his Asian indoor record from 2012 – ending that competition with a narrow miss at 2.40. He then flew to the Europa SC High Jump competition in Banska Bystrica, Slovak Republic, where his aching back restricted his jumps. In one of the strongest fields of the year, five jumpers cleared 2.30. Barsham began at 2.15, next cleared 2.30, then passed until 2.36 where his 3rd attempt clearance (only his fifth jump overall) gave him the win.

In an interview for the IAAF in April 2013, Barsham said: "It started hurting bad before the (2012) World Indoor Championships and then I had to stop for a bit. Before the Olympics, I had to stop again, but we have a really good sports center in Doha and I also received treatment in Warsaw."

Barsham began his 2013 season indoors, in Sweden, in mid-January.

He entered six competitions in Europe in 3 1⁄2 weeks, always jumping 2.30 or better and winning five out of the six competitions, before his back injury forced an early end.

His season-best of 2.37 matched his career indoor best and was the highest in the world indoors in 2013.

He won gold at the 2017 World Championships in London, the 2019 World Championships in Doha, and the 2022 World Championships in Eugene.

In 2019 the winner of the competition, Ivan Ukhov, was stripped of the gold medal by the Court of Arbitration in Sport for doping offences and in 2021 Barsham, alongside Drouin and Grabarz, were promoted to joint silver medals for the event.