New Zealand high jumper Hamish Kerr has won Olympic gold after beating his American rival Shelby McEwen in a dramatic jump-off.
The pair could have shared the title but McEwen rejected the offer, deciding not to follow in the footsteps of Mutaz Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi in Tokyo three years ago.
It was easy to understand why McEwen wanted to claim gold all for himself after being upstaged by Kerr at the indoor world championships in March.
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But the decision backfired when, after 11 straight misses between them, Kerr was the man to finally leap into Olympic immortality.
Both athletes maxed out at 2.36m and missed three attempts at 2.38m, with fatigue kicking in when neither could crack those heights in the jump-off.
The bar was then lowered to 2.34m to find a winner and Kerr answered the call.
He sprinted into the infield to celebrate and sunk to the turf in the centre of the javelin arc — thankfully, because the high jump final took so long, the women’s javelin final had already finished.
“To do it the way I did it was just amazing. It was crazy,” Kerr said before taking some responsibility for the decision not to share gold.
Kerr said he has “so much respect” for Barshim and Tamberi sharing the gold in Tokyo in what became one of the greatest moments of those Olympics.
“But I always thought that to add to the story and to be able to be given the chance to actually do the jump-off would be so amazing,” the Kiwi said.
“I knew straight away we were going to make history and we did that.”
Barshim, incidentally, took bronze on a countback from Stefano Sottile after both cleared 2.34m but could not jump any higher.
Tamberi suffered with health issues that cruelled his campaign and could only jump 2.22m for an 11th-place finish.
He was hospitalised with kidney stones and had a high temperature but refused to give up, the emotions pouring out when he reached his team after his final jump.
While Barshim and Tamberi went down in the annals of history for opting to share Tokyo gold, they may have made the same choice as McEwen this time round in Paris after World Athletics introduced prize money for Olympic champions.
“What would happen if it presented itself here again?” IOC commentator John Anderson recalled at the start of the jump-off.
“(Barshim said) ’well now there’s $50,000 for a gold medal, and we’re not sharing that. For that kind of money we would go back at it!”