1996 Summer Olympics / Athletics - High Jump (Women)

sport	athletics
discipline	high jump
gender	Women
Attendees	31 athletes from 25 countries
Competition location	Centennial Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	August 1, 1996 (qualification) August 3, 1996 (final)
Medalists Stefka Kostadinowa ( BUL )   Niki Bakogianni ( GRE )   Inha Babakowa ( UKR )

The women's high jump at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta was played on August 1 and 3, 1996 at the Centennial Olympic Stadium . 31 athletes took part.

The Bulgarian Stefka Kostadinova became Olympic champion . She won ahead of Greek Niki Bakogianni and Ukrainian Inha Babakowa .

Alina Astafei , who won silver for Romania in 1992 , started for Germany . Since 1995 she was allowed to start for Germany. She qualified for the finals and finished fifth.
The Swiss Sieglinde Cadusch was eliminated in the qualification.
Athletes from Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part.

Current titleholders

Olympic champion in 1992	Heike Henkel ( Germany )	2.02 m	Barcelona 1992
World Champion 1995	Stefka Kostadinowa ( Bulgaria )	2.01 m	Gothenburg 1995
European champion in 1994	Britta Bilač ( Slovenia )	2.00 m	Helsinki 1994
Pan American Champion 1995	Ioamnet Quintero ( Cuba )	1.94 m	Mar del Plata 1995
Central America and Caribbean champion 1995	María del Carmen García ( Cuba )	1.80 m	Guatemala City 1995
South America Champion 1995	Orlane dos Santos ( Brazil )	1.80 m	Manaus 1995
Asian champion 1995	Swetlana Zalewskaja ( Kazakhstan )	1.89 m	Jakarta 1995
African champion 1996	Irène Tiendrébéogo ( Burkina Faso )	1.84 m	Yaoundé 1996
Oceania champion 1994	Carmen Hunter ( Australia )	1.77 m	Auckland 1994

Existing records

World record	2.09 m	Stefka Kostadinowa ( Bulgaria )	Rome , Italy	August 30, 1987
Olympic record	2.03 m	Louise Ritter ( USA )	Final from Seoul , South Korea	September 30, 1988

Note: All times are Atlanta local time ( UTC − 5 ).

qualification

August 1, 1996, 9:30 a.m.

The qualification was carried out in two groups. The qualification height for the direct entry into the final was 1.95 m. No jumper even approached this height, all athletes who had climbed 1.93 m assumed that this would be sufficient for the final qualification because they were among the twelve best. In the end, fourteen athletes reached the final with a jump of 1.93 m (highlighted in light green).

Group A

space	Surname	nation	1.75 m	1.80 m	1.85 m	1.90 m	1.93 m	height	annotation
1	Inha Babakowa	Ukraine	-	-	O	O	O	1.93 m
	Niki Bakogianni	Greece	-	O	O	O	O
	Antonella Bevilacqua	Italy	-	O	O	O	O
	Elena Gulyayeva	Russia	-	O	O	O	O
	Stefka Kostadinova	Bulgaria	-	O	O	O	O
	Tisha Waller	United States	O	O	O	O	O
	Svetlana Zalevskaya	Kazakhstan	-	O	O	O	O
8th	Olga Bolșova	Moldova	-	O	xo	O	x o	1.93 m
9	Condinitha Teaberry	United States	O	xo	O	xx o	xxx	1.90 m
10	Sieglinde Cadusch	Switzerland	O	O	O	xxx		1.85 m
	Deborah Marti	Great Britain	O	O	O	xxx
12	Natasha Alleyne	Trinidad and Tobago	O	xo	xx o	xxx		1.85 m
13	Juana Rosario	Dominican Republic	O	O	xxx			1.80 m
14th	Joanne Jennings	Great Britain	O	O	xxx			1.80 m
15th	Svetlana Munkowa	Uzbekistan	O	xx o	xxx			1.80 m
16	Irène Tiendrébéogo	Burkina Faso	xx o	xxx				1.75 m
DNS	Coralea Cline	Czechoslovakia
	Sigrid Kirchmann	Austria

Group B

The Swede Kajsa Bergqvist was eliminated as eighth in her qualification group with a jump of 1.90 m

The Ukrainian team Wita Stjopina jumped 1.85 m and was eliminated as eleventh in their qualification group

space	Surname	nation	1.75 m	1.80 m	1.85 m	1.90 m	1.93 m	height	annotation
1	Alina Astafei	Germany	-	O	O	O	O	1.93 m
	Hanne Haugland	Norway	-	O	O	O	O
	Tatiana Motkova	Russia	O	O	O	O	O
	Nelė Žilinskienė	Lithuania	-	O	O	O	O
5	Britta Bilač	Slovenia	-	O	O	O	x o	1.93 m
6th	Zuzana Kováčiková	Czech Republic	O	O	xo	xo	xx o	1.93 m
7th	Tatiana Khramova	Belarus	-	O	O	O	xxx	1.90 m
8th	Kajsa Bergqvist	Sweden	O	O	xo	O	xxx	1.90 m
9	Lea Haggett	Great Britain	-	xo	O	x o	xxx	1.90 m
10	Ioamnet Quintero	Cuba	-	O	O	xx o	xxx	1.90 m
11	Yulia Lyachova	Russia	-	O	O	xxx		1.85 m
	Wita Stjopina	Ukraine	-	O	O	xxx
13	Ina Gliznuța	Moldova	O	xo	O	xxx		1.85 m
14th	Amy Acuff	United States	O	O	x o	xxx		1.85 m
	Alica Javadová	Slovakia	-	O	x o	xxx
16	Wenelina Wenewa	Bulgaria	xxo	xx o	xxx			1.80 m
ogV	Alison Inverarity	Australia	-	-	xxx				without height

final

August 3, 1996, 6:30 p.m.

Fourteen athletes had qualified for the final, none of them had skipped the required qualification level, all of them had reached this final via their placements. Two Russian women met one athlete each from Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and the USA.

The reigning world champion and world record holder Stefka Kostadinowa from Bulgaria was considered the favorite . Other medal contenders were runner-up world champion Alina Astafei from Germany, who was second in the 1992 Olympics when she started for Romania, and Inha Babakowa , who was third in the Ukrainian World Cup .

In the final, five jumpers were eliminated at the fifth height - 1.96 m, and two more at 1.99 m. When the 2.01 m was put up, six athletes were still in the race: the Russian Tatiana Motkowa and Astafei, who had both torn 1.99 m once and saved their further attempts for the next height, the Greek Niki Bakogianni and the Russian Jelena Guljajewa, who were both burdened with two failed attempts each, but had skipped 1.99 m, as well as Babakowa and Kostadinowa, who both had no failed jumps so far. 2.01 m were then too high for Jelena Guljajewa - in the end result fourth - Alina Astafei and Tatjana Motkowa - in the end together with the Lithuanian Nelė Žilinskienė on a shared fifth place. In the battle for the medals, there were now only three athletes left in the race: Kostadinova, Babakowa and Bakogianni. Inha Babakowa failed three times at 2.03 m, so she won the bronze medal. The other two high jumpers, on the other hand, managed 2.03 m, Kostadinowa in the first and Bakogianni in the third attempt. With this height they had set Louise Ritter's Olympic record of 1988 . At 2.05 m, the Greek broke the bar three times, so Niki Bakogianni had won the silver medal as an underdog. Stefka Kostadinowa jumped the new Olympic record high in the second attempt and thus became Olympic champion for the first time in her third participation. Her three attempts at the world record height of 2.10 m remained in vain.

The Italian Antonella Bevilacqua originally came fourth with 1.99 m. Before the Atlanta Games, she had been found to have ephedrine and pseudoephedrine in doping tests. Bevilacqua then blamed Chinese slimming pills. The Italian federation granted her a start permit for the Olympic Games. In an IAAF sports court case , her license was subsequently withdrawn and her results were canceled.

Stefka Kostadinova was the first Bulgarian Olympic champion in the women's high jump .

Niki Bakogianni won the first Greek medal in this discipline, Inha Babakowa won the first medal for Ukraine, which was participating as an independent nation for the first time.

space	Surname	nation	1.80 m	1.85 m	1.90 m	1.93 m	1.96 m	1.99 m	2.01 m	2.03 m	2.05 m	2.10 m	Bottom line	annotation
1	Stefka Kostadinova	Bulgaria	-	O	O	O	O	O	O	O	x o	xxx	2.05 m	OR
2	Niki Bakogianni	Greece	O	O	xo	O	O	xo	xo	xx o	xxx		2.03 m
3	Inha Babakowa	Ukraine	-	O	O	O	O	O	O	xxx			2.01 m
4th	Elena Gulyayeva	Russia	-	O	O	O	xo	x o	xxx				1.99 m
5	Alina Astafei	Germany	-	O	O	O	O	x--	xx				1.96 m
	Tatiana Motkova	Russia	-	O	O	O	O	x--	xx
	Nelė Žilinskienė	Lithuania	O	O	O	O	O	xxx
8th	Hanne Haugland	Norway	-	O	xxo	xo	O	xxx					1.96 m
9	Britta Bilač	Slovenia	O	O	O	O	xxx						1.93 m
	Tisha Waller	United States	O	O	O	O	xxx
11	Olga Bolșova	Moldova	O	O	xo	x o	xxx						1.93 m
	Zuzana Kováčiková	Czech Republic	O	xo	O	x o	xxx
13	Svetlana Zalevskaya	Kazakhstan	O	O	xo	xx o	xxx						1.93 m
DOP	Antonella Bevilacqua	Italy	O	O	O	O	O	O	xxx				1.99 m

literature

• Gerd Rubenbauer (ed.), Olympic Summer Games Atlanta 1996 with reports by Britta Kruse, Johannes Ebert, Andreas Schmidt and Ernst Christian Schütt, comments: Gerd Rubenbauer and Hans Schwarz, Chronik Verlag im Bertelsmann Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich 1996, p. 50

Web links

• SportsReference high jump , accessed March 14, 2018
• Official Report, Part III on the Olympic Games in Atlanta , p. 89, English / French (PDF, 13,520 MB), accessed on March 14, 2018

Video

• Women's High Jump Final Atlanta Olympics 1996 , published June 22, 2016 on youtube.com, accessed March 14, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Beijing 2015, page 798 , accessed on March 14, 2018
2. ↑ ^{a b} Official Report, Part III on the Olympic Games in Atlanta ( Memento of the original from October 7, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , P. 89, English / French (PDF, 13,520 MB), accessed on March 14, 2018