Martin Buss of Germany celebrates his 2001 World Championship win (© Getty Images)
Martin Buss of Germany, the World High Jump champion of 2001, has announced his retirement at the age of 30 after two years of persistent injury which prevented him from performing to his best.
In a career punctuated by physical problems, the highlight for Buss was a surprise victory in the Edmonton World Championships when he was the only man to jump 2.36m for a clear-cut win. Two years earlier, he had taken bronze in Seville, but missed both the Sydney and Athens Olympics through injury.
He made his first appearance at the World Championships in 1997 as a 21 year old where he ended up ninth, improved to third in Seville, but two years later, no one, least of all Buss, expected him to do as well as he did. For two years prior to Edmonton, Buss had failed to go higher than 2.30 outdoors and in 2001 was struggling early season with, in Buss’s words, “lousy form”. However, he managed to clear 2.30 in the German championships and made it to Canada.
But his form improved dramatically in training camp in Calgary and with it his confidence. In the final he had first time clearances at 2.20, 2.25 and 2.30, but suffered his first setback when he knocked the bar off at 2.33. He recovered to clear 2.36 at his second and last attempt of the competition for a personal best and the title, defeating defending World champion, Vyacheslav Voronin RUS (bronze) and World record holder Javier Sotomayor CUB (4th). Silver went to up and coming Russian, Yaroslav Rybakov. “I knew there were ten guys who could have won tonight, and the one with most luck would end up being the winner,” said Buss later.
For the 25-year-old, it was to be the pinnacle of a career which started as a 17-year-old when he started jumping in Berlin. Two years later he lifted the silver medal in the European Junior championships with a jump of 2.19.
In January last year he took part in his first high jump meeting for three years in Wuppertal where he finished fifth with 2.18. Buss was also a useful long jumper with a PB of 7.75.
In his World title winning year, Buss switched allegiance to the famous Bayer Leverkusen club which could also boast high jumpers Ulrike Meyfart and Heike Henkel as World and Olympic champions. Buss is married and has two sons, Jannik, 8, and Dominik, 6.
Michael Butcher for the IAAF
