Best Diamond League Moment Ever: Jumps
Asked to vote for your favourite jump in the last ten years of Diamond League action in the pole vault, long jump, high jump and triple jump, you plumped for Qatari superstar Mutaz Essa Barshim's breathtaking Brussels effort in 2014.
The jumps have given us some unforgettable moments over the last decade. This, after all, is the collection of disciplines which gave us both Renaud Lavillenie and Christian Taylor, the series’ joint record champions with seven Diamond Trophies each.
From six-metre monsters in the pole vault to genre-spanning heroics in the horizontals, the jumps have simply given us too many highlights to come up with a shortlist of just four top moments. Yet we managed to do just that, picking out four of the most iconic leaps in Diamond League history.
Taylor made the cut with his historic duel with Pedro Pablo Pichardo in Doha back in 2015, a night on which both men cleared the 18-metre mark. Sandi Morris also gets a look in thanks to her career highlight in Brussels in 2016. The USATF star remains the only woman to have cracked the five-metre mark in a Diamond League pole vault event. And who could forget Caterine Ibargüen’s brilliance in 2018, when the Colombian won the long jump and triple jump Diamond Trophies on consecutive evenings in Zurich and Brussels.
Yet according to our social media followers, the finest jump in Diamond League history belongs to Qatari high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim. At the age of just 23 in 2014, Barshim cleared 2.43m in Brussels to claim the Diamond Trophy and leave himself within two centimetres of the high jump.
Barshim had been involved in a season-long slog with Ukrainian rival Bogdan Bondarenko. Both athletes were in the form of their careers, and both ended the season with three victories apiece over the other. In Brussels, their year-long head-to-head reached a dramatic climax.
For much of the competition, it looked for all the world as if Bondarenko would take the Trophy. The Ukrainian cruised without fault to 2.37m, while Barshim twice dislodged the bar on his way to the same mark.
Both men then cleared 2.40m at the first attempt, and at the next height, Barshim made himself a global superstar.
While Bondarenko struggled, the Qatari sailed over at 2.43m, marking the second best height in high jump history and snatching the Diamond Trophy away from his Ukrainian rival.
Relive Barshim’s 2014 triumph, as well as our other best jump contenders, in the video below.