1960 Summer Olympics / Athletics - High Jump (Men)

sport	athletics
discipline	high jump
gender	Men
Attendees	32 athletes from 23 countries
Competition location	Stadio Olimpico
Competition phase	September 1, 1960
Medalist Robert Schawlakadse ( URS )   Valery Brumel ( URS )   John Thomas ( USA )

The men's high jump at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome was held on September 1, 1960 at the Stadio Olimpico . 32 athletes took part.

Olympic champion was Robert Schawlakadze from the Soviet Union, who won ahead of his compatriot Valeri Brumel . The bronze medal went to the American John Thomas .

While athletes from Liechtenstein did not take part, three Germans, one Swiss and one Austrian started. The German Theo Püll was able to qualify for the final and finished seventh there. His compatriots Werner Pfeil (19th place) and Peter Riebensahm (24th place) retired, as did René Maurer from Switzerland (19th place) and Austrian Helmut Donner (22nd place) after qualifying.

Existing records

World record	2.22 m	John Thomas ( USA )	Palo Alto , USA	July 1, 1960
Olympic record	2.12 m	Charles Dumas ( USA )	Melbourne finals , Australia	November 23, 1956

Note: The actual jump height for the world record was 2.232 m. The official specification results from an incorrect conversion and rounding of a value in the Anglo-Saxon unit of feet .

Conducting the competition

The athletes entered a qualifying round on September 1st. The required qualification height was 2.00 m. For all qualified jumpers the final took place on the afternoon of the same day.

Note: The qualified athletes are highlighted in light blue.

Time schedule

September 1st, 9:00 a.m .: Qualification
September 1st, 3:15 p.m .: Final

qualification

Werner Pfeil (GER) failed as 19th in the qualification

Date: September 5, 1960, 9:00 a.m.

space	Surname	nation	1.90 m	1.95 m	2.00 m	height	annotation
1	John Thomas	United States	-	-	O	2.00 m
2	Viktor Bolshov	Soviet Union	O	-	O	2.00 m
	Stig Pettersson	Sweden	-	O	O	2.00 m
4th	Maurice Fournier	France	O	O	O	2.00 m
	Robert Kotei	Ghana
	Jiří Lanský	Czechoslovakia
	Kjell-Åke Nilsson	Sweden
	Sándor Noszály	Hungary
	Cornel Porumb	Romania
	Robert Schawlakadze	Soviet Union
11	Theo Püll	Germany	xo	O	O	2.00 m
12	Piotr Sobotta	Poland	O	xxo	O	2.00 m
13	Valery Brumel	Soviet Union	O	-	x o	2.00 m
	Gordon Miller	Great Britain	-	O	x o	2.00 m
15th	Charles Dumas	United States	O	O	x o	2.00 m
	Joe Faust	United States
17th	Mahamat Idriss	France	O	O	xx o	2.00 m
18th	Kuniyoshi Sugioka	Japan	-	O	xxx	1.95 m
19th	René Maurer	Switzerland	O	O	xxx	1.95 m
	Werner Arrow	Germany
	Eero salt mines	Finland
22nd	Helmut Donner	Austria	xo	O	xxx	1.95 m
	Crawford Fairbrother	Great Britain
24	Jón Pétursson	Iceland	O	x o	xxx	1.95 m
	Peter Riebensahm	Germany
26th	Đorđe Majtan	Yugoslavia	-	xx o	xxx	1.95 m
27	Chilla Porter	Australia	O	xx o	xxx	1.95 m
28	Samuel Igun	Nigeria	O	xxx		1.90 m
29	Gurbachan Singh Randhawa	India	xx o	xxx		1.95 m
ogV	Sylvain Bitan	Tunisia	xxx				without height
	Mohamed Abdul Razzak	Iraq
	Çetin Şahiner	Turkey

final

Valery Brumel (URS), winner of the silver medal

John Thomas (USA) had to be satisfied with bronze as the top favorite

Date: September 5, 1960, 3:15 p.m.

The world record holder John Thomas from the USA was considered the top favorite for the gold medal. The high jumpers from the Soviet Union were seen as challengers, v. a. Valeri Brumel and Robert Schawlakadze. The 1956 Olympic champion , Charles Dumasm, was also one of the medal candidates behind Thomas, who had so clearly dominated the high jump world before the Games and who had soaring far above the best of his competitors that he was classified as hard to beat.
As expected, Thomas also took the lead after entering the competition at 2.00 m. He jumped 2.06 m and 2.09 m like the three Soviet athletes in the first attempt. Dumas surprisingly failed at 2.09 m and was eliminated from the competition in sixth. Thomas skipped the 2.12 m, which were mastered by Viktor Bolschow and Schawlakadze in the first and by Brumel in the second attempt. The Swede Stig Pettersson was eliminated in fifth. For 2.14 m, Thomas, Bolschow and Brumel each needed two attempts, only Shawlakadze jumped the bar in the first attempt. The height of 2.16 m was taken by Shawlakadze in the first and by Brumel in the second attempt. They had exceeded Charles Dumas ' Olympic record by four centimeters and were also four centimeters below John Thomas' world record. Thomas and Bolschow failed. The American won the bronze medal with the lower number of attempts. Both Shawlakadze and Brumel could no longer cross 2.18 m, so Shawlakadze was Olympic champion.

John Thomas' defeat was one of the biggest surprises of the Rome Games . Maybe he was too sure. In his previous competitions he had always been the solo entertainer and was able to concentrate fully on his heights. In contrast, there were always waiting times in Rome, Thomas had to see that there might be opponents to be taken more seriously than expected and the Soviet jumpers had included exactly this situation in their preparation, in order to be nervous and mentally full .

Robert Schawlakadze won the first gold medal for the Soviet Union in this discipline.

space	Surname	nation	1.90 m	1.95 m	2.00 m	2.03 m	2.06 m	2.09 m	2.12 m	2.14 m	2.16 m	2.18 m	Bottom line	annotation
1	Robert Schawlakadze	Soviet Union	-	-	xo	O	O	O	O	O	O	xxx	2.16 m	OR
2	Valery Brumel	Soviet Union	-	O	-	O	O	xo	xxo	xo	x o	xxx	2.16 m	ORe
3	John Thomas	United States	-	-	O	-	O	O	-	x o	xxx		2.14 m
4th	Viktor Bolshov	Soviet Union	-	O	-	O	O	O	O	x o	xxx		2.14 m
5	Stig Pettersson	Sweden	O	-	O	-	xxo	xx o	xxx				2.09 m
6th	Charles Dumas	United States	-	-	O	O	-	xxx					2.03 m
7th	Jiří Lanský	Czechoslovakia	O	O	O	O	xxx						2.03 m
	Kjell-Åke Nilsson	Sweden
	Theo Püll	Germany
10	Robert Kotei	Ghana	O	-	O	x o	xxx						2.03 m
11	Cornel Porumb	Romania	O	O	O	x o	xxx						2.03 m
12	Mahamat Idriss	France	-	xo	xo	x o	xxx						2.03 m
13	Sándor Noszály	Hungary	O	O	xo	xx o	xxx						2.03 m
14th	Maurice Fournier	France	-	O	O	xxx							2.00 m
15th	Piotr Sobotta	Poland	O	O	O	xxx							2.00 m
16	Gordon Miller	Great Britain	O	O	xx o	xxx							2.00 m
17th	Joe Faust	United States	O	O	xxx								1.95 m

literature

• Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 2: 1948–1968, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 1st edition 1969, pp. 201–204

Videos

• Robert Shavlakadze.wmv , published December 18, 2009 on youtube.com, accessed October 18, 2017

Web links

• SportsReference high jump , accessed October 18, 2017
• Official report pp. 132-134, engl. (PDF), accessed on October 18, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 2: 1948–1968, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 1st edition 1969, p. 204
2. ↑ Official report, page 63
3. ↑ Official Report of the 1960 Olympic Games , p. 132 (English) at library.la84.org (PDF), accessed on October 18, 2017
4. ^ Official Report of the 1960 Olympic Games , p. 134 at library.la84.org (PDF), accessed on October 18, 2017
5. ↑ SportsReference (Eng.)
6. ↑ Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 2: 1948–1968, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 1st edition 1969, p. 203