The high jump, which was contested at the Ancient Olympics, is an athletics event in which a competitor tries to jump over a horizontal bar without the aid of any devices.

The bar is four metres wide and each contestant may place one or two markers on the runway to assist them in their run-up and takeoff.

A contestant may enter the competition at any height and may pass (in other words, they can choose not to jump) at any height. Three consecutive failures, however, results in elimination, even if the failures are at different heights. Touching the bar is acceptable as long as the bar does not fall.

The first recorded high-jump competition of the modern era is believed to have taken place in Scotland in the early 1820s, when heights of up to 5ft 7in were recorded. The men’s outdoor world record, which was set by Javier Sotomayor of Cuba in 1993, stands at a whopping 2.45m (8ft ½ in). The women’s outdoor world record, which was established by Stefka Kostadinova of Bulgaria in 1987, stands at 2.09m (6ft 10in).

Increasingly innovative techniques have enabled high-jump exponents to leap higher and higher. Early jumpers used either a straight-on approach or a scissors method before techniques began to modernise markedly around the turn of the 20th century, starting with the Eastern Cut-Off, whereby a competitor would take off as if doing the scissors before extending his back and flattening out over the bar.

The Western Roll, in which the inner leg was used for take off while the outer leg was thrust up to lead the body sideways over the bar, was used predominantly in the first half of the 20th century before the advent of straddle jumping saw the high-jump world record break through the elusive 7ft barrier in 1956. Straddle jumpers took off as if they were doing a Western Roll before rotating their torso around the bar.

The most famous innovation, however - and one which revolutionised the sport - was the Fosbury Flop, which was introduced by Dick Fosbury, an American jumper from Oregon State University, in the 1960s. Today, it is a technique that is used almost without exception by elite high-jump performers. Taking advantage of the elevated, softer landing areas that had recently been introduced, Fosbury adapted the antiquated Eastern Cut-Off by directing himself over the bar head and shoulders first and sliding over on his back. Landing in such a manner in the old sawdust pits would unquestionably have caused serious neck injuries.

Fosbury used this technique to win the 1968 Olympic gold medal and he was soon being copied on the international high-jump circuit. The last straddle jumper to set a world record was Vladimir Yashchenko, a 19-year-old Ukrainian, who cleared 2.34m (7ft 8in) in 1978.

Franklin Jacobs, a 20-year-old American, beat the indoor high-jump world record in 1978, when he produced a leap of 2.32m (7ft 7¼ in) at Madison Square Garden. The most astonishing aspect of Jacobs’s achievement was that he stood only 5ft 8in tall, meaning that he jumped fully 23¼ inches above his head, a feat that no one else has ever matched.

High jump was included in the very first modern Olympics, in 1896, and has featured at every Games since. Competitors from the United States have proved to be the most successful, having won 13 of the 26 available gold medals. Great Britain have won a total of four medals, although none of them, alas, have been gold. Pat Leahy and Con Leahy, who were brothers, each won silver in 1900 and 1908, respectively, while Germaine Mason did likewise in 2008. Steve Smith claimed bronze in 1996.

Duncan McNaughton, a Canadian, won the Olympic high-jump title in 1932, but suffered the misfortune of having his gold medal stolen from his car the following year. Robert Van Osdel, an American dentist who had finished second to McNaughton, made a mould from his own silver medal, poured gold into it and sent the replica gold medal to the Canadian.

Walter “Buddy” Davis, an American who won the 1952 Olympic high-jump title, was unable to walk between the ages of eight and 11 after being struck down by polio.

Tim Forsyth, an 18-year-old Australian, was a surprise bronze medallist in the 1992 Olympic high-jump event. Four years earlier, he had been so uninterested in high jumping that, rather than watch the Olympic final on television, he went outside and mowed the lawn.

One of the finalists in the 2000 Olympic high-jump event was an American with an appropriate name: Nathan Leeper.

Britain had three competitors in the 2008 Olympic high-jump final, more than any other country.

The standing high jump was an Olympic discipline between 1900 and 1912, with the USA’s Ray Ewry winning the gold medal in 1900, 1904 and 1908. At the 1900 Paris Games, his winning jump of 1.655m (5ft 5in) would have earned “The Human Frog”, as he was dubbed, a silver medal in the normal high-jump event at the 1896 Olympics.