Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's high jump

Updated on Dec 13, 2023

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Venue Olympic Stadium Competitors 35 from 27 nations		Date 5–7 August Winning height 2.38

The men's high jump competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom was held at the Olympic Stadium on 5–7 August.

In the qualifying round, nobody needed to take an attempt at the automatic qualifying mark because they were at a tie for the 12th qualifying position at 2.26 metres with no misses before that height. Because there were two pits going on at the same time, they continued to 2.29 and half the field missed, two heights below the auto-qualifier. All the medalists came from those who made 2.29.

In the final, six athletes did not make it back to the qualifying height, including reigning world champion Jesse Williams and defending champion Andrey Silnov. Derek Drouin, Robert Grabarz and Mutaz Essa Barshim were clean through 2.29 and were in a three-way tie for first place. Erik Kynard cleared the next height 2.33. Somehow between jumps, Ivan Ukhov had taken off his singlet and it had gotten lost. As time clicked down, he pinned his number to a T-shirt and quickly took his jump at that height. It was successful, to move into a tie for first place. After the other three had failed, Jamie Nieto made a strategic decision to take an all or nothing jump at 2.36. It was a close attempt, but he missed it, Nieto finishing in 6th, the three-way tie left for the bronze medal. Kynard missed at 2.36, but Ukhov, again in his singlet, cleared. With silver guaranteed, Kynard passed to 2.38 to try to win. He missed but Ukhov again cleared. Kynard again passed to 2.40 to try to win. He missed, keeping the silver, with Ukhov clearly taking the gold.

Competition format

The competition consisted of two rounds, qualification and final. In qualification, each athlete had three attempts at each height and was eliminated if they failed to clear any height. Athletes who successfully jumped the qualifying height moved on the final. If fewer than 12 reached that height, the best 12 moved on. Cleared heights reset for the final, which followed the same three-attempts-per-height format until all athletes reached a height they could not jump.