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Iolanda Balaș
Balaș dominated women's high jumping for a decade with a modified scissors style that already looked old-fashioned to many observers. It hardly mattered: she set 14 world records, became the first woman over 1.90m, won Olympic gold in 1960 and 1964 and went unbeaten in roughly 150 consecutive competitions. Her long legs and fast, near-vertical take-off show that an unfashionable technique can still be the right one for a particular body.
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Valeriy Brumel
Brumel was the master of the straddle, rolling face-down over the bar with a powerful, sprint-fast approach. He raised the world record six times, to 2.28m in 1963, and won Olympic gold in Tokyo in 1964 after silver in Rome. A motorcycle crash in 1965 shattered his leg, and his long comeback under the surgeon Gavriil Ilizarov, eventually clearing 2.06m again, became as famous as his jumping.
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Dick Fosbury
Born
The jumper who gave his name to the event's defining technique. Struggling with the straddle as a teenager in Oregon, Fosbury drifted towards going over head first and back down, helped by the arrival of soft foam landing beds. At the Mexico City Olympics in 1968 he won gold with it, clearing an Olympic record 2.24m, and within a decade almost every elite jumper was flopping. Few athletes have changed an event so completely.
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Ulrike Meyfarth
Meyfarth was one of the first women to win big with the flop, taking Olympic gold in Munich in 1972 aged 16 and equalling the world record of 1.92m. Twelve years later, aged 28, she won again in Los Angeles, which makes her both the youngest and, at the time, the oldest Olympic high jump champion. Her career spans the whole period in which the flop went from novelty to standard.
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Rosemarie Ackermann
Ackermann was the straddle's last great champion. While the flop spread around her, the East German stayed with the face-down roll and won Olympic gold in Montreal in 1976, then in 1977 became the first woman to clear 2.00m. That she reached the event's most symbolic height with the older technique is exactly why the straddle-versus-flop argument ran on for years.
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Dwight Stones
Born
Stones was the first flopper to break the men's world record, in 1973, and raised it three times in all. He was also the event's great showman, rehearsing every jump visibly at the top of his long, curved approach, a pre-jump routine that is now standard. Two Olympic bronzes, including one in the rain in Montreal that punished his speed-dependent style, show the flop's early growing pains. He later became a well-known television analyst of the event.
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Sara Simeoni
Born
Simeoni's rivalry with Ackermann was the flop against the straddle in its purest form. The Italian's 2.01m in 1978 took the world record back for the flop, and she won Olympic gold in Moscow in 1980 between silvers in 1976 and 1984. Her smooth, elegant arch over the bar became a model for a generation of European women, and her three Olympic medals across eight years show a durability unusual in the event.
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Franklin Jacobs
Born
At about 1.73m, Jacobs looked nothing like a high jumper, and in 1978 he cleared 2.32m indoors in New York, a then world indoor best and 59cm above his own head. His explosive, almost springboard take-off from a fast approach made him the event's great curiosity of the late 1970s and the benchmark for every short jumper since. He never won a major outdoor title, but no one who saw him forgot how he jumped.
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Patrik Sjöberg
Born
Sjöberg's 2.42m in Stockholm in 1987 was a world record and is still a share of the European record nearly four decades later. Tall, loose-limbed and fast, he relied on a long approach and a big, relaxed arch rather than brute power, and he won the 1987 world title plus three Olympic medals across 1984, 1988 and 1992. His sustained run near the top makes him the flop's first truly long-lived star.
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Javier Sotomayor
Born
Sotomayor's 2.45m in Salamanca in 1993 has been the world record for more than 30 years, and no one has come within a centimetre of it since 2014. He combined a sprinter's approach speed with a powerful, upright take-off, and in 1989 he became the first man over eight feet. Olympic gold in Barcelona and two world titles followed. His record also includes two positive tests late in his career, one of which cost him his 1999 Pan American Games gold.
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Stefka Kostadinova
Born
Kostadinova's 2.09m at the 1987 world championships in Rome stood as the women's world record for 37 years, until Yaroslava Mahuchikh cleared 2.10m in 2024. The Bulgarian had a fast, aggressive approach and a remarkably consistent take-off that produced more than 190 competitions over two metres. Two world titles and Olympic gold in Atlanta in 1996, after silver in 1988, make her the reference point for sustained excellence in the women's event.
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Stefan Holm
Born
Holm was 1.81m tall in a world of two-metre jumpers, and he won Olympic gold in Athens in 2004 anyway. His secret was speed: one of the fastest approaches in the event and a quick, low take-off that he refined over thousands of jumps, clearing 2.40m indoors in 2005, 59cm above his head. Four world indoor titles show how well his method suited the tight, technical conditions indoors.
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Blanka Vlašić
Born
Vlašić is the counterpoint to Holm: very tall and slender, with a long, bouncing approach and a high, floating clearance. She won world titles in 2007 and 2009, cleared 2.08m in Zagreb, and put together a long winning streak around those years. Her Beijing 2008 silver, lost only on countback at the same height as the winner, is a reminder of how much high jump competition comes down to first-time clearances rather than the best single jump.
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Ruth Beitia
Born
Beitia is the competitor's high jumper. Never the highest jumper in the world, she won Olympic gold in Rio in 2016 at 37 with a clearance of 1.97m, decided on countback because her record of first-time clearances was cleaner than her rivals'. She also won three straight European titles, and her London 2012 fourth place was later upgraded to bronze after another jumper's doping disqualification. Study her for composure and attempt management rather than raw height.
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Mutaz Barsham
Born
Barshim's jumping is the most fluid of the modern era: a fast, springy approach and a high, almost effortless arch that took him to 2.43m in 2014, second only to Sotomayor. He won three straight world titles from 2017 to 2022 and Olympic medals at four Games, including the Tokyo gold he famously agreed to share with Tamberi rather than jump off. That moment changed how many fans thought about competition itself.
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Gianmarco Tamberi
Born
Tamberi turns the high jump into theatre, from the half-shaved beard to the crowd-clapping run-ups, but the technique underneath is serious: a powerful, aggressive take-off that he had to rebuild after a ruptured ankle ligament wrecked his 2016 season. He brought his old plaster cast to the Tokyo final and left with a shared Olympic gold, then won the 2023 world title. He has kept competing with the 2028 Games in mind.
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Mariya Lasitskene
Born
Lasitskene's jumping was a model of repeatability: the same measured approach and compact, efficient clearance, competition after competition. It brought three world titles and a winning streak of 45 competitions in 2016 to 2018, and Olympic gold in Tokyo competing as a neutral. Her career was shaped by the suspension of Russia's federation for institutional doping, which kept her out of Rio and, later, out of international competition altogether; she herself was never sanctioned.
More about Mariya Lasitskene18
Yaroslava Mahuchikh
Born
Mahuchikh finally took down Kostadinova's 37-year-old record with 2.10m at the Paris Diamond League in July 2024, weeks before winning Olympic gold. Tall and long-legged, she combines a fast, low final approach with an exceptionally high hip position over the bar, and she has kept winning while training away from war-torn Ukraine: world titles, the 2026 world indoor title and the first World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest in September 2026.
More about Yaroslava Mahuchikh19
Hamish Kerr
Kerr's Paris 2024 Olympic gold came in the event's rarest format: a jump-off against Shelby McEwen after both had cleared 2.36m with identical records, with the bar lowered until Kerr cleared and McEwen did not. Tall and patient, the New Zealander has a measured, rhythmic approach and an unflappable manner under pressure, and he backed up the Olympic title by winning the 2025 world championship in Tokyo.
More about Hamish Kerr20
Nicola Olyslagers
Born
Olyslagers made the mental side of high jumping visible: she writes and sketches in a notebook between attempts and talks openly about staying calm under the bar. On the runway she has a light, quick approach and a supple, rounded arch. The method has brought Olympic silver in Tokyo and Paris and a run of global medals, and she has become Mahuchikh's most persistent rival, pushing her close again at the 2026 world indoor championships.
More about Nicola Olyslagers21
Woo Sang-hyeok
Born
Woo is short for an elite high jumper at around 1.88m and makes up for it with one of the fastest, most explosive approaches in the event, in the tradition of Holm and Jacobs. His joyful, crowd-raising style made him a star in South Korea after a fourth place and national record at the Tokyo Olympics, and he has since won world indoor titles and world outdoor silver medals. A modern case study in how a shorter jumper competes at the top.
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