High Jump, Women

The women’s high jump had no clear favorite, but it did have a very large final field, as 17 jumpers succeeded at the automatic qualifying height of 1.94 metres. All 17 cleared the final’s opening height of 1.88 metres, and 12 jumpers were also successful at 1.93. At 1.97 metres the field thinned out, as only four competitors succeeded – Spain’s Ruth Beitia, Bulgarian Mirela Demireva, Croatian Blanka Vlašić, and American Chaunte Lowe, with Beitia and Demireva clearing on their first attempts, while Vlašić had one failure, and Lowe needed three attempts. Beitia was in the lead, however, as Demireva had a miss at the opening height. When all four jumpers failed at 2.00 metres, Beitia won the gold medal, with Demireva getting silver, and Vlašić bronze.

Beitia was in her fourth Olympics, winning her first medal at age 37. Vlašić was competing in her fifth Olympics, adding this bronze to the silver she had won at Beijing in 2008. Lowe was also a veteran, competing at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, and she had come back from three pregnancy leaves. One other jumper who received a lot of pre-Games publicity was American Vashti Cunningham, the 2016 World Indoor Champion. She was only 17-years-old and was also the daughter of former NFL player Randall Cunningham. She cleared 1.88 in the final, but finished in a tie for 13th.