First they raised the bar. Then they lowered it.
Wherever they placed the bar, American Shelby McEwen and indoor world champion Hamish Kerr of New Zealand failed to clear it. The two high jumpers could have settled for a draw and both won a gold medal, but instead forced fans at the Olympic Games in Paris on Saturday to watch an endless jump-off for the gold medal.
The two men had 11 consecutive misses – so many that there wasn’t enough room on the scoreboard to mark all of them – in regulation time and in the shoot-off. The bar was lowered twice in the shoot-off, and Kerr finally ended his streak of misses when he jumped 2.34 meters (7 feet, 8 inches) to take gold.
“It was just incredible to do it the way I did it,” Kerr said. “It was crazy.”
McEwen took silver as he and Kerr both reached a height of 2.36 metres (7 feet, 8.75 inches).
On the final day of the Olympics, China was ahead of the USA with 39 gold medals to 38. Had McEwen accepted a draw in the battle for gold, the two superpowers would have been tied.
A similar scenario played out at the Tokyo Olympics, with Mutaz Barshim of Qatar and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy choosing to accept the draw.
Barshim won the bronze medal on Saturday with 2.34. Tamberi was eliminated early.
“I have a lot of respect for what they did in Tokyo, but I always thought it would be incredible to make history and get the chance to actually compete in the jump-off,” Kerr said. “I knew right away that we were going to make history, and that’s what we did.”
“I’m pretty sure Shelby had the same mindset because we just looked at each other and it was pretty easy,” Kerr added. “We both just nodded and off we went.”
McEwen added: “We were talking and he said, ‘Let’s jump ship.’ And I said, ‘I’m all for it.'”
Kerr celebrated by enthusiastically running across the pitch in the middle of the Stade de France.
They both missed the 2.38 gap in the first round of the jump-off, two more missed the 2.36 gap and McEwen missed the 2.34 gap before Kerr finally finished the first event of the evening just moments before the women’s 4×400 relay team completed the final athletics session at the Stade de France.
“If I hadn’t made that jump or another one very soon, we’d probably still be out there,” Kerr said.
McEwen said he thinks “we were both a little exhausted at the end,” adding that he had the $50,000 first-place prize in mind. “Absolutely, I’ve got a family to feed. But hey, we’re going to go back to the drawing board and get better.”
Earlier, Tamberi had failed all three attempts at 2.27 – only the second height of the competition. He covered his face with his hands in disappointment and then Barshim came over to console his good friend.
Tamberi has been battling a number of physical problems in recent days. He was hospitalized with kidney stones and had a fever of 38.8 degrees. But he vowed to compete no matter what.
When it was over and Tamberi had finished 11th in the 12-man final, he went over and cried with his team in the stands.
In the women’s javelin throw, Haruka Kitaguchi exceeded all expectations and stood on top of the podium with her first throw of 65.80 meters, giving Japan its first gold medal in this discipline.
South Africa’s Jo-Ane van Dyk and Czech Nikola Ogrodnikova put in a number of brave efforts but never came close to their goals, taking silver and bronze with their best throws of 63.93 and 63.68 respectively.
Last year, Kitaguchi needed her last throw to win the World Championship gold medal in Budapest, but she left little to be desired at the Stade de France when she produced her best throw of the season to open the competition.
With her third throw, Ogrodnikova was able to briefly control second place, but van Dyk immediately overtook her.
With the gold in her pocket, Kitaguchi nervously skipped along the end of the catwalk, keeping her poker face as she attempted one final bonus attempt. The emotions came quickly as she burst into tears and hugged her team with the Japanese flag above her before ringing the victory bell.
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
