With 10 men having jumped within 3cm of each other so far this season, it is fair to say that this is a wide open event.

It has been a cold and wet summer during the European track season, and this might explain the inconsistent form of the high jumpers. Not until the last couple of weeks before Osaka, when Olympic champion Stefan Holm (SWE) jumped so well to win in London and Stockholm, matching Don Thomas's season-leading height of 2.35m, has what the bookmakers might regard as a “favourite” emerged.

Thomas (BAH) is an interesting character, in that he has only really taken up high jumping in the past 18 months, having been before that at college in the United States, where he played basketball. Since then, he has won a Pan-Am Games silver medal, finished fourth in last year’s Commonwealth Games, and now tops the 2007 performance lists.

Russia will again have their hopes pinned on Yaroslav Rybakov and Andrey Tereshin, who have both jumped 2.34. But Rybakov, with two World silvers to his name, has been beaten four times this season by Tereshin.

German champion Eike Onnen could also be one to watch, having won all the competitions he has competed in this season, except his own national championships (where he withdrew injured without registering a height).

Osaka 2007 News Team/SD