Shelby McEwen takes silver in high jump after declining to split gold in wild jump-off

The men’s high jump at the Olympics came down to sudden death.

After New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr and American Shelby McEwen both cleared 2.36 meters, the two athletes went to a jump-off for gold, declining to split the top podium spot.

Kerr ultimately delivered by going over at 2.34 meters — that’s 7 feet, 8 inches, by the way — after McEwen missed, winning gold for New Zealand.

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It was the Pacific nation’s first ever medal at the high jump and their ninth gold of the Paris Games.

Three years ago in Tokyo, the same scenario played out between Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi, but the two agreed to share gold instead of having a jump-off.

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That, however, is a rarity at gold for the Olympics, and Barshim referred to it as a “one-time thing” in an interview with Agence France-Presse earlier this year.

“To be honest, it will never happen again,” Barshim, who took bronze in Tokyo, told AFP in April. “That moment, we’ll never share that again. It was a one-time thing. Coming back from injuries and a dark place, I wanted to do something different, something with a different meaning.

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“I’m glad it touched so many people’s hearts, but we’re sportspeople, we’re professionals. We always want to be the best. We have that fire, ‘I want to beat you, you want to beat me.'”

His prediction was ultimately proven correct on Saturday, though Barshim himself didn’t qualify to take part in the jump-off.

Instead, it was Kerr who jumped for gold.

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