23 year old Qatarian Mutaz Barshim stands at 6ft 3.5 inches and can clear nearly 8ft in the high jump. The Olympic bronze and World silver medalist sits at second on the all-time list behind the Cuban world record holder Javier Sotomayor, who has held the record for the high jump for 21 years.
After capping off a successful 2014 campaign in Brussels at the final Diamond League meet, Barshim’s jump of 2.43m sparked an amusing trend on social media. Here is a collection of some of the best trending photos for #ThingsBarshimCouldJumpOver.
Barshim falls just short of being able to ‘dunk’ himself, with a basketball hoop standing at around 3 metres tall…
Barshim would clear the cross bar on a full-sized football goal, reaching around the 8ft mark…
#MoFarahRunningAwayFromThings was so 2012… Let’s go, give us your best @mutazbarsham #ThingsBarshimCouldJumpOver pic.twitter.com/L16wDv2FWa
— SPIKES (@spikesmag) September 11, 2014
Here he is clearing a red telephone box…
Hahah another one I like #ThingsBarshimCouldJumpOver #london #telephone #box üòÇüòÇ pic.twitter.com/tWrsABTT1u
— ‚ôï‚ôïŸÖÿπÿ™ÿ≤ ÿ®ÿ±ÿ¥ŸÖ ‚ôïBarshim (@mutazbarshim) September 12, 2014
And here he fosbury flops over Mo and Usain on the podium…
@mutazbarsham #ThingsBarshimCouldJumpOver pic.twitter.com/XamGWAIVkg
— Kristian Backman (@KristianBackman) September 12, 2014
If your average giraffe stands at 5-6m, Barshim is probably clearing just over its back…
Finally, here our Qatarian high jump star comfortably jumps over an elephant (average female adult Asian elephant stands at 220-240cm)…
Inspired by @theschmenk, a compilation of #ThingsBarshimCouldJumpOver https://t.co/A6wda7vnOZ pic.twitter.com/ZcJa26W6WL
— Nick Zaccardi (@nzaccardi) September 12, 2014
These well-photoshopped images put in perspective how high the bar really has been set this year and, with perhaps a generally negative reaction to Gatlin’s 9.7/19.7 double, it was refereshing to see athletics fans posting Barshim’s image in entertaining scenarios. We’ll be looking out for a possible world record in 2015.
