Athletics at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Games:

The best jumper of the 1980s had been Cuban Javier Sotomayor but he had been boycotted out of both the 1984 and 1988 Olympics. Sotomayor had set his first world record in 1988 with 2.43 (7-11½). On 29 July 1989, at the Central American and Caribbean Championships, he broke that with a second-attempt clearance of 2.44. It was a historic jump for Imperial-measure fans, as that was the first jump over 8 feet – actually it would be 8-0⅛. Soto bettered that in 1993 with 2.45, and thru 2008 he remains the only jumper to clear the eight-foot barrier. He was favored in 1992, with other jumpers to watch being Sweden’s Patrik Sjöberg, 1987 World Champion, 1991 World Champion Charles Austin, and the 1988 Olympic silver medalist, Hollis Conway. After 2.34 (7-8) five jumpers remained, Soto, Sjöberg, Conway, and Australia’s Tim Forsyth and Poland’s Artur Partyka, but Soto led as he had not missed at the height. and that decided the competition, as nobody succeeded at 2.37 (7-9¼). Sjöberg won the silver medal with fewer total misses.