- World indoor champion Nicola Olyslagers challenges Olympic champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh for the world title
- Olyslagers has the world lead with 2.04m, set in the Wanda Diamond League Final
- Five women have cleared two metres this year
Three women have dominated the high jump in the past four years – Olympic champion and world record-holder Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine, and the Australian pair of world indoor champion Nicola Olyslagers and 2022 world champion Eleanor Patterson.
No one else has taken gold in a global championship in this period, and in both Paris last year and in Budapest in 2023 all three were on the podium.
Last year belonged to Mahuchikh as she raised the world record to 2.10m on a magical evening in Paris in June, and returned in August to claim her first Olympic title, defeating Olyslagers on countback after both cleared 2.00m.
But it was oh so close to gold for the Australian, and that appears to have lit a fire in her belly for this year, where she has emerged as the frontrunner for the world title.
She began by successfully defending her world indoor title in Nanjing, and then put together an exemplary outdoor season, winning Wanda Diamond League events in Stockholm, Paris, Lausanne and the final in Zurich, where she soared to a personal best, world lead and Oceanian record of 2.04m, to claim the title.
Olyslagers was ecstatic with the result, having chased that height for two years, and at least one of her attempts at 2.06m was good enough to suggest she has more in her legs.
Mahuchikh, by contrast, has been unusually subdued this year, perhaps coming down from the high of her triumphant Olympic year. She finished third in Nanjing with a best clearance of 1.95, started the Diamond League season brightly with three consecutive wins, but has struggled to go above 2.00 consistently this season.
She finished second to Olyslagers in Stockholm and Paris, and fourth in London, but finally started to look more like her old self in Zurich, in what was easily the best competition of the year to date as four women cleared 2.00m.
The Ukrainian star’s clearance at 2.02m was huge and her second attempt at 2.06m was extremely close, indicating that she is finally finding her mojo at the right end of the season.
Fellow Ukrainian Yuliia Levchenko and Briton Morgan Lake also cleared 2.00m in the street event in Zurich to declare their ambitions for the podium in Tokyo. Germany’s Christine Honsel is another with a 2.00m clearance this year.
Patterson, with a personal best of 2.02m, has yet to join the two-metre club this year, with a best of 1.99m. She took the silver medal at the World Indoors in Nanjing in March, but has struggled during much of the outdoor season as she adjusts to a new coach, new training base in Turin and a change of technique.
It may be expecting too much for her to find her best form in Tokyo, following so much disruption. But she is a proven big-time performer, having earned medals at all five global championships in the past four years, and that’s a streak she will want to keep.
Nicole Jeffery for World Athletics