‘Smile Jumper’ Woo Sang-hyuk (28, Yongin City Hall) has moved into the Paris 2024 Olympic Village after leaving the South Korean team’s pre-camp.
A high jump mat was laid out at the Stade de France athletics stadium near the athletes’ village.
It means the final is coming.
Woo Sang-hyuk moved into the Olympic Village in Saint-Denis, Paris, France, on Thursday (Feb. 4).
Woo has been in Paris for quite some time now.
On July 14, he entered the Team Korea Paris Platform, a pre-camp for the Korean athletes at the French National Center for Defense and Sports (CNSD) in Fontainebleau outside Paris, where he trained for three weeks.
“I can’t wait for the competition to start,” he said.
Woo will compete in the men’s high jump at 10:05 a.m. (5:05 p.m. KST) on July 7.
A total of 31 athletes will compete in the preliminaries, with the top 12 qualifying for the finals. The number of finalists could increase if there is a tie for 12th place.
The finals will begin at 7 p.m. on Oct. 10 (2 a.m. on Oct. 11).
Woo, who made his Olympic debut in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, was eliminated from the qualifying rounds after falling against a wall of 2.29 meters. His previous best was 2.26 meters.
At the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021, he cleared 2.28 meters, becoming the first Korean track and field athlete to reach the final in 25 years since Lee Jin-taek in the men’s high jump at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
In the final, he set a new Korean record of 2.35 meters (35 feet) to finish fourth, the best ever finish for a South Korean track and field athlete at an Olympic Games.
In Paris, Woo Sang-hyuk is not worried about ‘qualifying’.
After the Tokyo Olympics, Woo set a string of milestones for Korean athletics, including winning the 2022 World Indoor Championships (2.34m), finishing second at the Outdoor World Championships (2.35m) and winning the 2023 Diamond League Final (2.35m).
“My training and competitions over the past three years have all been in preparation for winning a medal in Paris,” Woo said.
“I don’t care about anything but high jumping,” he said, and he even cut his hair because he wanted to jump even one centimeter higher.
Woo will compete in Paris with shorter hair than at the Tokyo Olympics, where he competed as a soldier.
Woo, who has a personal best of 2.36 meters, cleared 2.33 meters this year.
Only Jean-Marco Tamberi (2.37m, Italy), Hamish Kerr (2.36m, New Zealand) and Jervon Harrison (2.34m, USA) have posted season’s best marks higher than Woo.
Shelby McCuean (USA) cleared 2.33 meters, the same height as Woo.
Mutaz Essa Barsim, the ‘best jumper in the world’, has a season’s best of 2.31 meters.
The world’s top jumpers have been slow to post personal bests this year.
This is because most of them set their body clocks to the Paris Olympics.
“In Paris, I will try to not only improve my season’s best, but also break the Korean record,” said Woo Sang-hyuk.
If he clears 2.37 meters, he will have a shot at the men’s high jump gold medal in Paris. 파워볼실시간