Germany's Raul Spank celebrates winning the bronze medal in the men's High Jump final in front of a home crowd in the Berlin Olympic Stadium (© Getty Images)
The start of the men’s High Jump final did not promise much. It was probably the delay because of the rain that soaked the stadium when the competition should have started which made most of the jumpers look a bit weary to say the least.
For a moment it seemed like medals would be decided way too early with all jumpers missing their first tries at 2.28m, but fortunately the second and third rounds of attempts had four athletes clearing this height.
All of the favourites cleared 2.23m with their first jumps expect World leading (co-leader with Andra Manson and Yaroslav Rybakov) Ivan Ukhov who cleared this height with his second attempt. But 2.28m, the next height, was surprisingly too much for the Russian who had jumped 2.40m indoors to win the European indoor title this winter.
In the competition which seemed to lack something for many top names 2.28m was too high also for Swede Linus Thörnblad, Andra Manson, the American with the co-world lead 2.35m and Czech Jaroslav Baba.
With Russian, also with 2.35m this season, Yaroslav Rybakov and a real surprise name, European U23 champion, just 20-year-old Sylwester Bednarek of Poland over 2.28m with their second tries, German Raul Spank and Kyriakos Ioannou of Cyprus, the bronze medallist from Osaka 2007, joined them in third try. For Bednarek this was already an equal personal best and Rybakov was leading the competition at this stage with Bednarek in second and Spank and Ioannou tied for the third place.
The seasoned Russian did what he had to and cleared the next height 2.32m in his first jump forcing the others to go over next height as well if they wanted to win today. Rybakov, who had so often been the best man in gold medal celebrations with three silvers from previous World championships in 2001, 2005 and 2007, was finally in the driver’s seat this time.
But the 25-year-old Cypriot Ioannou answered in the first round too clearing 2.32m and moving to second place in the competition. German Spank, jumping as first in every round, equalled his personal best with his second jump but shockingly the young Pole followed his example adding a massive four centimetres to his personal best 2.28m which he had already equalled in this competition and cleared 2.32m with his second try as well and equal third place with the German.
The competition then moved to 2.35m and although there were many good jumps none of the competitors were able to get over the bar and Rybakov finally got a golden medal in addition to the three silvers he had won earlier. The Russian did have a gold indoors 2006 and three silvers indoors as well. Ioannou now has two medals from the last two champs with Raul Spank getting his first major medal and first German medal in this event for eight years since Martin Buss won in Edmonton 2001. Bednarek, the one medallist who very few would have picked, was the first Polish high jumper to win a medal since Artur Partyka’s silver medal in Athens 1997.
Naturally the medal was a first for Bednarek as well as this was his first major championships outdoors. The Pole was very talented as a youngster too already clearing 2.22m as a 16-year-old in 2005, and won a silver medal at the 2008 World junior championships in Bydgoszcz.
Mirko Jalava for the IAAF
