Mutaz Essa Barshim

Mutaz Essa Barshim is a Qatari high jumper of Sudanese origin, born in Doha on 24 June 1991. He is the second-highest jumper of all time with a personal best of 2.43 metres, and a three-time world champion, in London in 2017, Doha in 2019 and Eugene in 2022. ^{1 2}

He is the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion, where he agreed with Italy's Gianmarco Tamberi to share the gold medal, and he also holds silvers from London 2012 and Rio 2016 and a bronze from Paris 2024 — four Olympic medals in all — and holds the Asian high jump record. ¹

A graduate of Doha's Aspire Academy, he has been coached by Stanisław Szczyrba since September 2009. ^{1 2}

Barshim was born in Doha to a Sudanese family, one of six sons and a daughter of a father who was himself a track and field athlete and took his children to the club; nearly all the children became athletes, including Muamer, also a high jumper, and Meshaal, a football goalkeeper. He attended an Arabic school in Doha, where he learned English, tried running and long jump, switched to the high jump at 15, trained at the Aspire Academy and graduated in 2009 with a personal best of 2.14 m, meeting his coach Szczyrba that September. ^{1 2}

His first international successes came in 2010: Asian Indoor gold, the Asian Junior title with a national record of 2.31 m that led the world's junior lists, and the World Junior title in Moncton with 2.30 m; he was the first Aspire graduate to compete at a World Championships. ¹

In 2011 he won the Asian Championships in Kobe with 2.35 m, a national and championship record, took gold at the Military World Games in Rio de Janeiro, reached the World Championships final in Daegu, finishing seventh, and closed the year with Pan Arab Games gold in Doha. ¹

In 2012 he won the Asian Indoor title in Hangzhou with 2.37 m, an Asian indoor record and the year's highest indoor jump, then took bronze at the London Olympics with 2.29 m in a three-way tie; in 2021, after the original champion Ivan Ukhov was stripped of the title for doping, the bronze was promoted to a shared silver. He was competing despite a stress fracture of the fifth lumbar vertebra. ¹

In 2013 he took World Championships silver in Moscow and cleared 2.40 m at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, becoming the eighth man ever to clear that height outdoors and the first since 2000. ¹

In 2014 he won the World Indoor title in Sopot with 2.38 m, an Asian indoor record, jumped 2.41 m in Rome and 2.42 m in New York, then raised his personal best to 2.43 m in Brussels to become the second-highest jumper in history behind Javier Sotomayor, and won Asian Games gold in Incheon. ¹

He won silver at Rio 2016, the world title in London in 2017, and in October 2019 became the first man to defend the World high jump title, winning in his home city of Doha with 2.37 m. ¹

At Tokyo 2020, he and Tamberi both cleared 2.37 m at the first attempt and failed at 2.39 m; Barshim asked the official, "Can we have two golds?", and on hearing that they could, the two agreed to share the title. ¹

In 2022 he won his third world title in Eugene, and at Paris 2024 he took bronze with 2.34 m to complete a set of four Olympic medals. ¹

His major titles are three World Championships (2017, 2019, 2022), the 2014 World Indoor title, Olympic gold (2020), two Olympic silvers (2012, 2016) and an Olympic bronze (2024), the 2014 Asian Games gold, and multiple Asian and Arab titles. ¹

His personal best of 2.43 m (Brussels, 2014) makes him the second-highest jumper of all time behind Sotomayor, and he holds the Asian record. ^{1 2}

This section presents positions reported by the sources; it is not the museum's verdict on any of them.

His best-known moment is the shared Tokyo gold: rather than contest a jump-off, he asked whether two golds were possible, and embraced Tamberi saying, as the article reports, "History, my friend". ¹

The sources also record how a chronic back injury — a stress fracture of the L5 vertebra — repeatedly interrupted his career and limited his indoor seasons, even as he kept winning world titles through 2022. ¹

The sources used here state no religion for Barshim: the articles give his Qatari nationality and Sudanese origin only, and his Wikidata item carries no religion statement, so the museum records no faith or school for him. ^{1 2 3}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.