High jump world champion Mutaz Barshim will lead Qatar’s hopes at the 18th World Championships in Athletics to be held at Hayward Field in Eugene, USA from July 15-24.

Barshim, 31, has been absent from competition since winning a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics with Italy’s Gianmarco Tampere until appearing at the Doha meeting, the first round of the Diamond League, when he finished second (2.30m) behind the South Korean. . Sanhyuk Wu (2.33 m) last May.

Barshim cemented his participation in Eugene as the 2019 title holder at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha by jumping 2.37m knowing he was the 2017 champion in London, placing fourth in Beijing 2015 and second in Moscow . in 2013 and seventh in Daegu, South Korea in 2011.

Khalid Rashid Al-Marri, chief executive of the Qatar Federation, said in an interview with Qatar News Agency (QNA) that Barshim’s training went as planned and proceeded as usual before participating in any event, calling the Olympic champion “quite professional”. know where he is going and he knows the purpose of every sporting event he participates in”, stressing that the federation is not putting pressure on raising the ceiling of expectations.

– Balanced preparations –

Barshim, whose best jump reached 2.43 m, achieved it on September 5, 2014 in Belgium, two centimeters behind the Cuban Javier Sotomayor, world record holder (2.45 m since July 27, 1993), his absence from the Rome International Diamond Meeting in the league raised some concerns about Yevgeny’s stellar readiness to defend his world title, especially since he justified his apology at one time due to health problems.

However, the Olympic champion quickly dispelled these fears and chose not to participate in any major events before taking up preparatory training in order to achieve full readiness before the World Championships.

Since May, Barshim has been participating in a balanced preparatory phase following participation in the Doha Round of the Diamond League.

He went through the first training phase at the camps in Sweden and Poland before moving on to another training session in Los Angeles in the United States of America, which will last until Evgeny joins.

He will be joined by sprinter Femi Ogunudi (100m and 200m) and middle distance runner Musab Adam Ali (1500m).

Ogundi, a four-time Asian 100m champion, was ranked 26th in the world rankings before the deadline for qualifying for the World Championships after clocking 10.2 seconds at the Tokyo Olympics while he placed 21 200m place with his time. 20.16 seconds, which he recorded in Doha on June 29, 2021.

As for Musab Adam, he secured qualification for the World Championship with a time of 3.34.76 minutes last July 4 during the international meeting in Stockholm.

Ogunudi and Musab went through training camps in Germany and then the US before traveling to Eugene.