High Jump champions and records

Patrik Sjoberg of Sweden
The top ten high jump measures of all time for men are shared between 17 athletes of 11 different nations (if we consider the Soviet Union and today’s Russia as different nations).
Cuba and Sweden, with J. Sotomayor and P. Sjoeberg, hold the two top places but behind them the strength of the Russian “school” is evident: 4 athletes from the former Soviet Union, plus 2 Russians and 1 Ukrainian.
The athlete who came closest to Sotomayor’s record since its establishment in 1993 has been the Russian Vyacheslav Vorononin with 2.40m in 2000, while the most recent measure among the top ten, Andrey Silnov’s 2.38m in 2008, is still quite shy of Sotomayor’s record.
 
Updated 2008-10-03.
Men (outdoor)

Pos.
Mark
Athlete
Nationality
Venue
Date
1.
2.45
Javier Sotomayor
 Cuba
San Juan
July 23, 1993
2.
2.42
Patrik Sjöberg
 Sweden
Stockholm
June 30, 1987
3.
2.41
Igor Paklin
 Soviet Union
Kobe
September 4, 1985
4.
2.40
Rudolf Povarnitsyn
 Soviet Union
Donetsk
August 11, 1985
Sorin Matei
 Romania
Bratislava
June 20, 1990
Charles Austin
 United States
Zürich
August 7, 1991
Vyacheslav Voronin
 Russia
London
August 5, 2000
8.
2.39
Zhu Jianhua
 China
Eberstadt
June 10, 1984
Hollis Conway
 United States
Norman
July 30, 1989
10.
2.38
Gennadiy Avdeyenko
 Soviet Union
Rome
September 6, 1987
Sergey Malchenko
 Soviet Union
Banská Bystrica
September 4, 1988
Dragutin Topic
 Yugoslavia
Beograd
August 1, 1993
Troy Kemp
 Bahamas
Nice
July 12, 1995
Artur Partyka
 Poland
Eberstadt
August 18, 1996
Jacques Freitag
 South Africa
Oudtshoorn
March 5, 2005
Andriy Sokolovskyy
 Ukraine
Rome
July 8, 2005
Andrey Silnov
 Russia
London
July 25, 2008

 
The ladies’ top ten club is more of an elite, as it features  only 11 athletes of 10 different nationalities.
Here too the Eastern European school is dominant: Bulgaria has the top two places with Kostadinova and Andonova, then we also have athletes from Croatia, the Soviet Union, Russia and the Ukraine.
The up-and-coming name is Ariane Friedrich of Germany, who jumped 2.06m on June 14th, 2009, laying down a formidable challenge for the next World Championships.
 
Women (outdoor)

Pos.
Mark
Athlete
Nationality
Venue
Date
1.
2.09
Stefka Kostadinova
 Bulgaria
Rome
August 30, 1987
2.
2.07
Lyudmila Andonova
 Bulgaria
Berlin
July 20, 1984
Blanka Vlašić
 Croatia
Stockholm
August 7, 2007
4.
2.06
Ariane Friedrich
 Germany
Berlin
June 14, 2009
Kajsa Bergqvist
 Sweden
Eberstadt
July 26, 2003
Hestrie Cloete
 South Africa
Paris
August 31, 2003
Yelena Slesarenko
 Russia
Athens
August 28, 2004
7.
2.05
Tamara Bykova
 Soviet Union
Kiev
June 22, 1984
Heike Henkel
 Germany
Tokyo
August 31, 1991
Inha Babakova
 Ukraine
Tokyo
September 15, 1995
Tia Hellebaut
 Belgium
Beijing
August 23, 2008

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, it uses material from the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_jump.