MEET MR. HAMISH KERR: THE 31ST MEN’S OLYMPIC HIGH JUMP CHAMPION. HOW HE LEAPED TO GOLDEN GLORY AND WHAT IT REPRESENTED.

MEET MR. HAMISH KERR:
THE 31ST MEN’S OLYMPIC
HIGH JUMP CHAMPION.
HOW HE LEAPED
TO GOLDEN GLORY
AND WHAT IT REPRESENTED.

BY ELLIOTT DENMAN / WITH DWIGHT STONES

Kerr-rect me if I’m wrong, but the newly-throned men’s Olympic

high jump champion, Mr. Hamish Kerr is (all at once):

(a) The 31st different champion of an event that has been staged

31 times.

(b) The first New Zealand male track and field athlete to strike gold at the

Games since John Walker ran off with the 1500 meters at Montreal in 1976.

(c) The first male athlete from the Southern Hemisphere to win the

Olympic HJ since John Winter of Australia in London in 1948.

(d) The first Kerr-named male Olympian to strike Olympic

track and field gold since Bobby Kerr of Canada dashed to the 200-meter title

at London in 1908.

(e) Sorry, Mr. Josh Kerr of Team GB, USA’s Cole Hocker got to his 1500th Paris meter all of 14/100th of
a second before you.

(f) Sorry, too, past American golden guys Sabin Carr (1928 pole vault); Bill Carr (1932 400, 4×400); Henry Carr (1964 200, 4×400) – sure, you sound close, but C-a-r-r doesn’t spell K-e-r-r.

(g) The first Hamish-named fella from New Zealand to claim Olympic gold since
rower Hamish Bond pulled a mighty oar for the NZ eight at Tokyo 2021.

(h) And to do all this, he had to fight off American challenger Shelby McEwen, in the form of his life, as well as the illustrious Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar, now the Games’ first (and only) four-time HJ and full-set medalist (silver London 2012 and Rio 2016), co-gold with Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy (Tokyo 2021), now bronze (Paris 2024.)

All that said, let me now hand off to Mr. Dwight Stones, Mr. High Jump himself:

Nineteen-time National Champion; three-time world record-breaker; three-time Olympian, two-time Oly bronze medalist (Munich 1972, Montreal 1976.) And – for sure, for sure – for decades, one of the sport’s best–ever broadcasters and keenest analysts.

So here’s how Mr Dwight Stones saw it go down (er, we mean up):

“ Going into the 2024 Olympic high jump competition, I felt like Hamish Kerr of New Zealand was coming in with the best yearly record and that he was capable of matching or exceeding his NR/PR of 2.36m (7’8 3/4”) in order to win the Gold.