Athletics at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Men's high jump

This was the 25th appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics. The returning finalists from the 2000 Games were bronze medalist Abderrahmane Hammad of Algeria, fourth-place finisher Stefan Holm of Sweden, sixth-place finishers Mark Boswell of Canada and Staffan Strand of Sweden, and tenth-place finisher Vyacheslav Voronin of Russia. Dragutin Topić competed under for the fourth time, under his third flag (the Olympic flag as an Independent Olympic Participant in 1992, Yugoslavia in 1996 and 2000, and now Serbia and Montenegro). Holm was favored; he had placed second at the 2003 world championship (the winner, Jacques Freitag, was present in Athens but injured) and "had won 17 consecutive meets leading up to Athina."[3]

Cyprus, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovenia, and Sri Lanka each made their debut in the event. The United States made its 24th appearance, most of any nation, having missed only the boycotted 1980 Games.

The qualification period for Athletics was 1 January 2003 to 9 August 2004. For the men's high jump, each National Olympic Committee was permitted to enter up to three athletes that had jumped 2.30 metres or higher during the qualification period. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. If an NOC had no athletes that qualified under that standard, one athlete that had jumped 2.27 metres or higher could be entered.[4]

The competition consisted of two rounds, qualification and final. Athletes start with a qualifying round. Jumping in turn, each athlete attempts to achieve the qualifying height. If they fail at three jumps in a row, they are eliminated. After a successful jump, they receive three more attempts to achieve the next height. Once all jumps have been completed, all athletes who have achieved the qualifying height go through to the final. If fewer than 12 athletes achieve the qualifying standard, the best 12 athletes go through. Cleared heights reset for the final, which followed the same format until all athletes fail three consecutive jumps.[5]

Prior to the competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

World record	Javier Sotomayor (CUB)	2.45	Salamanca, Spain	27 July 1992
Olympic record	Charles Austin (USA)	2.39	Atlanta, United States	28 July 1996

No new records were set during the competition.

All times are Greece Standard Time (UTC+2)

Key

Qualifying round

Rule: Qualifying standard 2.28 (Q) or at least best 12 qualified (q).

Rank	Group	Athlete	Nation	2.10	2.15	2.20	2.25	2.28	Height	Notes
1	B	Stefan Holm	Sweden	—	—	o	o	o	2.28	Q
	A	Jamie Nieto	United States	—	—	o	o	o	2.28	Q
	A	Mark Boswell	Canada	—	—	o	o	o	2.28	Q, SB
4	A	Andriy Sokolovskyy	Ukraine	—	o	o	xo	o	2.28	Q
	B	Lisvany Pérez	Cuba	o	xo	o	o	o	2.28	Q, PB
	B	Svatoslav Ton	Czech Republic	o	o	xo	o	o	2.28	Q
7	A	Alessandro Talotti	Italy	—	o	xo	xxo	o	2.28	Q
8	A	Yaroslav Rybakov	Russia	—	o	o	o	xo	2.28	Q
9	A	Dragutin Topić	Serbia and Montenegro	—	o	xo	o	xo	2.28	Q, =SB
	B	Jaroslav Bába	Czech Republic	—	o	o	xo	xo	2.28	Q
11	B	Matt Hemingway	United States	—	-	o	o	xxo	2.28	Q
12	B	Vyacheslav Voronin	Russia	—	o	xo	xo	xxo	2.28	Q
13	A	Hennazdy Maroz	Belarus	—	o	o	o	xxx	2.25
	B	Nicola Ciotti	Italy	—	o	o	o	xxx	2.25
15	A	Ştefan Vasilache	Romania	—	o	xo	o	xxx	2.25
	B	Abderrahmane Hammad	Algeria	—	xo	o	o	xxx	2.25	SB
17	B	Jessé de Lima	Brazil	—	o	xxo	o	xxx	2.25
18	B	Staffan Strand	Sweden	—	-	o	xo	xxx	2.25
	A	Kyriakos Ioannou	Cyprus	o	o	o	xo	xxx	2.25
20	A	Grzegorz Sposób	Poland	—	o	o	xxx	N/A	2.20
	B	Rožle Prezelj	Slovenia	—	o	o	xxx	N/A	2.20
	B	Jacques Freitag	South Africa	—	o	o	xxx	N/A	2.20
	A	Manjula Kumara Wijesekara	Sri Lanka	—	o	o	xxx	N/A	2.20
24	A	Linus Thörnblad	Sweden	o	xxo	o	xxx	N/A	2.20
25	A	Oskari Frösén	Finland	o	o	xo	xxx	N/A	2.20
	A	Roman Fricke	Germany	—	o	xo	xxx	N/A	2.20
	B	Jean-Claude Rabbath	Lebanon	o	o	xo	xxx	N/A	2.20
	B	Robert Wolski	Poland	—	o	xo	xxx	N/A	2.20
	B	Pyotr Brayko	Russia	—	o	xo	x-	N/A	2.20
30	A	Tomáš Janků	Czech Republic	o	xo	xo	xxx	N/A	2.20
31	B	Marko Aleksejev	Estonia	o	o	xxx	N/A		2.15
	B	Javier Bermejo	Spain	o	o	xxx	N/A		2.15
33	A	László Boros	Hungary	xo	o	xxx	N/A		2.15
34	A	Tora Harris	United States	—	xo	xxx	N/A		2.15
35	A	Alfredo Deza	Peru	o	xxx	N/A			2.10
36	B	Liu Yang	China	xxo	x	N/A			2.10
—	A	Adrian O'Dwyer	Ireland	xxx	N/A				NM
—	B	Aleksey Lesnichiy	Belarus	—	xxx	N/A			DPG	*

^* Aleksey Lesnichiy was disqualified after failing an anti-doping test.[6]

Final

Rank	Athlete	Nation	2.20	2.25	2.29	2.32	2.34	2.36	Height	Notes
	Stefan Holm	Sweden	o	o	o	xo	xxo	o	2.36	=PB
	Matt Hemingway	United States	o	o	—	o	o	xxx	2.34	SB
	Jaroslav Bába	Czech Republic	o	o	o	xxo	o	xxx	2.34	PB
4	Jamie Nieto	United States	o	xo	—	o	xo	xxx	2.34	PB
5	Andriy Sokolovskyy	Ukraine	o	o	o	o	xxx	N/A	2.32
6	Yaroslav Rybakov	Russia	o	xo	o	xo	xxx	N/A	2.32	=SB
7	Mark Boswell	Canada	o	—	o	xxx	N/A		2.29	SB
8	Svatoslav Ton	Czech Republic	o	xo	xo	xx-	x	N/A	2.29
9	Vyacheslav Voronin	Russia	o	—	xxo	xxx	N/A		2.29
10	Dragutin Topic	Serbia and Montenegro	xo	—	xxo	—	xxx	N/A	2.29
11	Lisvany Pérez	Cuba	o	xo	xxx	N/A			2.25
12	Alessandro Talotti	Italy	o	xxo	—	xxx	N/A		2.25

• Official Olympic Report