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Javier Sotomayor was barely 15 years old when he first flew over the 2-meter limit. That slender mulatto, born on October 13th, 1967, in the town of Limonar (about 20 km away from the city of Matanzas) was cut out for high jumping, and his talent for that was discovered by the sports activist Carmelo Benítez.
His ascension to glory was astonishing and it had a lot to do with the hard work of his first trainer José Godoy and later Guillermo de la Torre.
Being 6'5'' tall and weighing 178 pounds, he started over at the age of 13 and only jumped up to the 1.65 m, but he was 5'' shorter then.
Javier Sotomayor really astonished every one when, at the age of 19, Javier Sotomayor established a junior world record of 2.36. Many considered him the most stable jumper and they were right because along his career he jumped over the 2.40 m limit 22 times.
His first absolute world record (2.43 m) was established in Salamanca, Spain, on September 8th, 1988. The 2.44 m record was set the following year in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but in 1993 he would reach, again in Salamanca, the 2.45 m, a world record that remains still untouched.
Javier Sotomayor also walked triumphantly in other high-rank competitions. Javier Sotomayor won three gold medals in outdoor world championships and other four gold medals in indoor competitions at the same level. In the same way, Javier Sotomayor treasures his victories in three Pan-american Games and other three Central American and Caribbean Games. That represents all the prizes given by the international athletics federation (IAAF).
After having been unfairly penalized with two years away from competitions due to a supposed cocaine consumption detected in an antidoping analysis during the Pan-american Games Winnipeg'99, the international federation condoned the penalty and he was allowed to participate in the summer Olympics of Sydney 2000. Javier Sotomayor quickly trained for three months and became the silver medallist of the tournament with a jump of 2.29 meters, only surpassed by the Russian Serguei Klujin, who won the gold medal with a jump of 2.31 meters. |
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