Nobody in the world has jumped indoors higher, with the power of his own body, than Cuban Javier Sotomayor. Today, exactly 25 years ago, he performed that feat, that memorable moment that has been embedded in the annals of world history of athletics.
The Budapest 1989 Indoor World Championship was underway. The athlete born in Limonar, Matanzas, had a lukewarm start in his jump sequence and nothing presaged what would happen next. In its first attempt he passed 2, 25 meters, in the second he stretched to 2, 31. On his third he made a foul over 2, 35 meters and then everything indicated it would be an ordinary day in terms of results. After the unprecedented missed, he placed again in the bottom of the track, concentrated and also talked to himself aloud, crossed the synthetic track and easily flew over the bar.
In the next round, the bar was at 2.37, a height respected for other athletes back then. Until then he had just passed it, and was already indoors world champion since his closest pursuers , German and Swedish Dietmar Moegenburg and Patrick Sjoeberg, respectively, had finished at 2.35 . In the first attempt, with absolute cleanliness, rising in the air in a compact plexus and torso movement, without touching the metal bar, he was left alone in the competition.
He requested the judges to raise the height of the bar to 2, 43 meters; he would have a shot at the world record. There was total expectation. It was March 4, 1989 and Javier Sotomayor in Budapest , Hungary, was trying to enter in history as the man who has been closer to the stars with the impulse of his own body.
He returned to the bottom of the track, next to the first line of seats, with the entire crowd attentive to the events. El Soto , this time made his inside request with more fervor , asked the audience some hype, though some prefer the silence of the final moments , others choose clamor as their momentum. He babbled some words, launched them into the air after two separate slaps in the face. He started running, with that elegant stride , as when swans take off the lakes and begin to rise and was picking up speed as he approached the mattress was gaining strength as he turned the corner and envisioned the 2, 43 meter height. He took one, two, three, three steps almost in unison, short but powerful steps and rose to fly over that height.
25 years later, Javier Sotomayor still boasts of his record. At 45 he admits that if any of records is surpassed, his life would change. “Surely I will not feel good; I will not enjoy it, that’s the truth. But the days pass and I will accept that the records are to be broken “he told EFE.
Sotomayor got it all on the athletic scene: six world titles (two outdoors and 4 indoors), one Olympic and three world records and was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Sports in 1993.
