Javier Sotomayor

Javier Sotomayor
Javier Sotomayor (2009)
Full name	Javier Sotomayor Sanabria
nation	Cuba
birthday	October 13, 1967
place of birth	Lemonar
size	193 cm
Weight	80 kg
Career
discipline	high jump
Best performance	2.45 m
status	resigned
End of career	2001
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 1 × 0 × World championships 2 × 2 × 0 × Pan American Games 3 × 0 × 0 × Indoor World Cup 4 × 1 × 0 × Universiade 1 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold Barcelona 1992 high jump silver Sydney 2000 high jump  World championships silver Tokyo 1991 high jump gold Stuttgart 1993 high jump silver Gothenburg 1995 high jump gold Athens 1997 high jump  Pan American Games gold Indianapolis 1987 high jump gold Havana 1991 high jump gold Mar del Plata 1995 high jump  Indoor world championships silver Paris 1985 high jump gold Budapest 1989 high jump gold Toronto 1993 high jump gold Barcelona 1995 high jump gold Maebashi 1999 high jump  Universiade gold Duisburg 1989 high jump

Javier Sotomayor Sanabria (born October 13, 1967 in Limonar , Matanzas ) is a former Cuban high jumper . With an Olympic victory, two world championships outdoors and four world championships indoors, Javier Sotomayor is the most successful and best high jumper in the history of athletics. His personal best of 2.45 meters (world record on July 27, 1993) and 2.43 meters in the hall (world record on March 4, 1989) are the current world records in this discipline.

Career

Until the Olympic victory

In 1985 the World Indoor Games took place in Paris, the forerunner of the later World Indoor Championships. At the age of 17, Javier Sotomayor was second, his 2.30 meters was only exceeded by the Swede Patrik Sjöberg with 2.32 meters. In 1986 Sotomayor was junior world champion in Athens with 2.25 meters in front of the American Hollis Conway with 2.22 meters. At the World Indoor Championships in 1987 Sotomayor finished fourth with 2.32 meters. Igor Paklin won with 2.38 meters ahead of Hennadij Awdjejenko , both from the Soviet Union. At the Pan American Games in Indianapolis in 1987, Sotomayor won with 2.32 meters in front of Troy Kemp of the Bahamas with 2.28 meters. At the World Athletics Championships in Rome in 1987 , Sjöberg, Paklin and Awdjejenko jumped over 2.38 meters. Sotomayor was ninth with 2.29 meters.

The Cuban team did not take part in the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul. In what shape Sotomayor was, he proved on September 8, 1988 in Salamanca, when he improved the world record of Sjöberg by one centimeter to 2.43 meters. At the indoor world championships in 1989 in Budapest, Sotomayor also improved the indoor world record to 2.43 meters and won ahead of Sjöberg, the German Dietmar Mögenburg and the British Dalton Grant , who jumped all 2.35 meters. At the Caribbean Championships Sotomayor improved on July 29, 1989 in San Juan (Puerto Rico) the outdoor world record to 2.44 meters.

At the World Indoor Championships in Seville in 1991, Sotomayor shared the bronze medal with Alexei Jemelin from the Soviet Union with a jump of 2.31 m behind Hollis Conway (2.40 m) and the Pole Artur Partyka (2.37 m). The Pan American Games were played in the Cuban capital in 1991. Sotomayor won in Havana with 2.35 meters ahead of Troy Kemp and Hollis Conway, who each crossed 2.32 meters. At the World Championships in Tokyo , the American Charles Austin won with 2.38 meters. Sotomayor won silver with 2.36 meters.

Javier Sotomayor was a favorite at the 1992 Olympic Games , but some jumpers had shown good form beforehand. In Barcelona a total of five jumpers mastered the height of 2.34 meters in the final, all attempts at 2.37 meters failed. Sotomayor was Olympic champion after the multiple attempt rule before Patrik Sjöberg. Partyka, Conway and the Australian Tim Forsyth each won bronze with the same number of failed attempts.

After the Olympic victory

1993 was Javier Sotomayor's most successful year. At the World Indoor Championships in Toronto he won with 2.41 meters before Sjöberg with 2.39 meters. On July 27th, he improved the world record in Salamanca to 2.45 meters. And he was also superior at the World Championships in Stuttgart. With 2.40 meters he won ahead of Partyka and the British Steve Smith with 2.37 meters each.

At the World Indoor Championships in Barcelona in 1995 , Sotomayor won with 2.38 meters ahead of the Greek Lambros Papakostas with 2.35 meters. He was also victorious at the Pan American Games in Mar del Plata. At 2.40 meters, he jumped eleven centimeters higher than the runner-up. At the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg, Troy Kemp and Sotomayor each crossed 2.37. Kemp had fewer failed attempts and won gold over Sotomayor. In 1996 Sotomayor was mostly injured. At the Olympic Games in Atlanta, he finished eleventh with 2.25 meters. In Athens at the 1997 World Championships , he won 2.37 meters ahead of Partyka and Forsyth.

Doping controversy

In 1999 he won his fourth indoor world title in Maebashi . With 2.36 meters he jumped as high as the second-placed Russian Vyacheslav Voronin . In Winnipeg at the Pan American Games, he won again. When doping test but was cocaine found and he was disqualified.

The Cuban Association protested against this disqualification and the related ban and achieved that the ban was shortened to one year and Sotomayor was allowed to participate in the 2000 Olympic Games . With 2.32 meters he won silver in Sydney behind the Russian Sergei Kljugin with 2.35 meters. At the World Indoor Championships in 2001 in Lisbon, Sotomayor was fifth with 2.25 meters. Outdoors at the World Championships in Edmonton, he finished fourth; but this was withdrawn from him because of doping (during a training test, nandrolone was discovered in the sample). Sotomayor evaded the now due lifelong suspension by retiring from the sport in autumn 2001.

Appreciation

Javier Sotomayor jumped 230 times over 2.30 meters and higher and 21 times 2.40 meters and higher in his career. He has been the world record holder since 1988, longer than any other high jumper. He was eight times world best of the year: 1988, 1989, 1992 to 1995, 1997 and 1998; the next best jumpers in this category were four times best of the year.

Only in the number of world records were two other high jumpers more successful: the American John Thomas with four official world records and the Russian Valeri Brumel with six official world records.

Personal

Javier Sotomayor is a trained sports teacher. With a height of 1.93 meters, his competition weight was 80 kg. Since 1989 he has been married to the high jumper María del Carmen García , with whom he lives in Havana. The couple have four sons.

literature

• Manfred Holzhausen: world records and world record holder. High jump / long jump. Grevenbroich 1999
• Peter Matthews (Ed.): Athletics 2001. Worcester 2001, ISBN 1-899807-11-X

Web links

• Javier Sotomayor in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Javier Sotomayor in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Spiegel Online : Athletics: Cocaine crashes high jumper Sotomayor , August 6, 1999
2. ↑ BBC : Protest over Sotomayor comeback , August 21, 2000
3. ↑ Reuters : Sotomayor tests positive for nandrolone , January 11, 2002
4. ↑ Stern : What is actually doing? Javier Sotomayor. No. 33 of August 7, 2014, p. 126.