Qatar's Mutaz Essa Barshim has added Olympic gold to his list of accolades in the men's high jump in Tokyo -and persuaded organisers to let him share it with his friend and rival, Italy's Gianmarco Tamberi.
Both Barshim and Tamberi ended with jumps of 2.37 metres and had no failed attempts until they attempted to clear 2.39.
Reuters reports after three failures each at that height, an Olympic official first offered them a jump-off to decide the winner.
When Barshim asked him if they can have two gold medals the official nodded, and the two athletes jumped for joy.
It was also a win-win situation for the Italian, who broke his ankle days before the Rio Games in 2016.
Barshim won bronze, later upgraded to silver, at the London 2012 Games He picked up another silver in Rio four years later and then won two successive world titles in 2017 and 2019.
His personal best of 2.43m is the second-highest jump of all time, behind Cuban Javier Sotomayor's world record mark of 2.45 set in 1993.
[Source: Reuters]
