Woo Sanghyeok and Oleh Doroschchuk set the high jump benchmark this season with clearances of 2.34m outdoors and indoors respectively
Olympic champion Hamish Kerr has also shown good form, winning the Diamond League Final in Zurich.
Mutaz Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi, who shared Olympic gold in Tokyo in 2021, have struggled to make their mark in 2025
A mere four centimetres separates the season’s bests of the top nine entrants, setting up a potentially mouth-watering high jump competition where the podium finishers could come from anywhere.
Korea’s Woo Sanghyeok, who cleared 2.34m to win at the Diamond League meeting in Monaco, heads to Tokyo with the best outdoor mark this season. He also won at the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing earlier this year.
He cut his European leg of the season short because of a calf injury, but he has allayed fears it was anything serious in the lengthy lead-up to Tokyo. The 29-year-old is still hopeful of producing his best finish at an outdoor global championships, improving on the bronze medal he earned at the 2022 World Championships.
Another to clear 2.34m this season – albeit indoors – is Ukraine’s Oleh Doroshchuk, who was beaten by two centimetres at the recent Diamond League final in Zurich by Hamish Kerr.
Kerr famously won high jump gold at the Olympics a year ago after he and US rival Shelby McEwen turned down the opportunity to emulate their peers Mutaz Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi in sharing gold.
Both became iconic Olympic moments for very different reasons, Kerr edging out McEwen, who insists to this day he has no regrets about going for outright gold, despite having to make do with the runner-up spot.
McEwen has been a little off his best so far this season with a highest clearance of 2.26m while both Barshim and Tamberi have been shadows of their former selves.
Barshim’s 2.13m season’s best is 30cm shy of what he has soared over previously while his Italian friend and rival made it over 2.20m in 2025, in contrast to a 2.39m clearance at his best.
Neither are anticipated to challenge the podium in Tokyo. That would be the first World Championships that Barshim is not a medallist since Daegu all the way back in 2011.
Two men have bests of 2.33m this season: Jan Stefala of Czechia and Yuto Seko of Japan, the latter of which was a national record leading to high hopes of a potential medal in front of his home fans. Seko, who competes wearing spectacles, seemed to have room to spare when he cleared 2.33m.
Four more men have made their way over 2.30m this year. At 22, Israel’s Jonathan Kapitolnik is one of the rising stars of his discipline. A world and European U20 champion in 2021, this year he has progressed to 2.31m and won at the World University Games.
Tamberi is joined on the Italian team by Stefano Sottile, a two-time Olympian and part-time computer programmer, who hails from an athletic family. His brother Davide competed in a number of different disciplines while Stefano began with the javelin before making the move across to the high jump where he has excelled ever since.
He faces competition for top Italian in Tokyo from another rising star, Matteo Sioli. The 19-year-old earned European indoor bronze earlier this year, then claimed gold at the European U23 Championships.
Matt Majendie for World Athletics
AloJapan.com