High jump

The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern most practised format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat for landing. At the elite level, athletes run towards the bar and use the Fosbury Flop method of jumping, leaping head first with their back to the bar. Performed since ancient times, competitors have introduced increasingly more effective techniques to arrive at the current form.

The discipline is, alongside the pole vault, one of two vertical clearance events to feature on the Olympic athletics programme. It is contested at the World Championships in Athletics and IAAF World Indoor Championships, and is a common occurrence at track and field meetings. The high jump was among the first events deemed acceptable for women, having been held at the 1928 Olympic Games.

Javier Sotomayor (Cuba) is the current men's record holder with a jump of 2.45 m (8 ft 0¹⁄₄ in) set in 1993 – the longest standing record in the history of the men's high jump. Stefka Kostadinova (Bulgaria) has held the women's world record at 2.09 m (6 ft 10¹⁄₄ in) since 1987, also the longest-held record in the event.

Derek Drouin

Derek Drouin (born March 6, 1990) is a Canadian high jumper from Corunna, Ontario. He is the reigning world champion in high jump. He previously won a bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London as well as the bronze medal at the 2013 World Championships in Athletics. With that jump of 2.38m he set a national record in the high jump for Canada. He would go on to better that height to 2.40 metres (7 ft 10 in) during the 2014 season, becoming just the tenth man in the world to ever clear that height in outdoor competition. Aside from his title as world champion Drouin is also the reigning Pan American Games and Commonwealth Games champion in the high jump. In his college career he was a five time NCAA champion in the high jump for the Indiana Hoosiers.

Career

Drouin first achieved international success when he won the 2009 Pan American Junior Championships in high jump for Canada, clearing 2.27 m. He would continue on in his career competing in the NCAA with the Indiana Hoosiers track team where he would be the first Hoosier athlete to win an NCAA championship in high jump. Prior to the 2012 season Drouin had never competed at any senior level World Championships. Drouin won the Big Ten Athlete of the Year after becoming the first athlete in NCAA history to win 5 NCAA championships in the high jump.