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SAINT-DENIS, France — At the end of Saturday’s epic two-hour-plus men’s high jump competition, the top two competitors faced a life-changing decision.
Did they want to share the Olympic gold? Or did they want to compete in a jump-off to determine a definitive winner?
New Zealand’s 27-year-old Hamish Kerr had discussed this exact scenario with his team after a training session three or four months ago. Someone asked Kerr if he wanted to share the gold like best friends Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy and Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar did in Tokyo three years ago.
While Kerr acknowledged that showing sportsmanship was “such a special thing for the sport,” he told his team that he preferred to “contribute to the history of the sport in a different way than has been done to date.” That day, he decided he would jump off and go for outright gold if he ever found himself in that position.
“I would have been so proud to finish second in a jump-off,” Kerr said. “Probably prouder than sharing the gold medal, to be honest.”
American Shelby McEwen, 28, never had to decide whether he would make it to the jump-off before Saturday, nor had he thought about how he would handle that scenario if it happened. Exhausted and heavy-legged, but also eager to win outright, McEwen was open to both options as he and Kerr chatted briefly next to the high jump pit.
“Let’s jump off,” Kerr said.
“I’m all for it,” McEwen replied.
And so it was decided.
“I might have shared it with him, but he wanted the jump-off and I went along with it,” McEwen said. “I wasn’t going to go back and forth and argue with him.”
Kerr won the jump-off, the “Flying Kiwi” clearing the bar at 2.34 metres after he and McEwen had both missed attempts at 2.38 and 2.36. Knowing he had won, a weary Kerr mustered the energy to get up and sprint across the Stade de France lawn in celebration of New Zealand’s first high jump medal.
“If I hadn’t made that jump, or another one, quickly, we probably would still be here,” Kerr joked more than an hour later.
For someone who saw a gold medal slip through his fingers, McEwen showed no signs of regret. He was content with a new personal best jump of 2.36 metres for the jump-off and with the silver medal around his neck.
“I didn’t get the gold, but I’m grateful for what I got,” McEwen said.
A decade before he competed for gold in the high jump at the Paris Olympics, McEwen was known for his leaping prowess in another sport. The then-teenager won Jordan Brand’s “First to Fly” dunk contest in 2014 in Las Vegas, starting from a free throw, soaring through the air and finishing with an explosive one-handed dunk.
Born in Abbeville, Mississippi, McEwen grew up doing somersaults off hay bales, trampolines and anything else he could find. He first dunked in the seventh grade. By the eighth grade, he was dunking in games.
Although McEwen did high jump for a year in high school and won the Mississippi State Championship, he considered himself a basketball player at the time. It wasn’t until his basketball career at Northwest Mississippi Community College came to a halt that he began experimenting with high jumping again.
As an independent athlete, meaning he didn’t represent his school, McEwen beat out high jumpers with college scholarships and years of training, drawing the attention of several college coaches and putting him on a path to competing for high jump gold on an Olympic podium at Stade de France.
McEwen has long since given up on the idea of playing in the NBA, but there’s one dream he’s having a hard time giving up.
McEwen says with a smile, “If the NBA ever wants me in the dunk contest, I’m going to do it.”
