The Women's high jump competition at the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

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. The event was held at the

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on 9–11 August. In the qualifying round, only four athletes attempted the automatic qualifying height of 1.96, the clearance necessary for Svetlana Radzivil to advance beyond two misses at 1.93 and while failing, Irina Gordeeva needed to cover her chances in case

Ariane Friedrich Ariane Friedrich (born Tempel; 10 January 1984 in Nordhausen) is a German high jumper. She won the silver medal at the 2009 World Championships and represented Germany at the 2008 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Olympics. She is the German ...

Antonia Stergiou Antonia Stergiou ( el, Αντωνία Στεργίου, born 7 July 1985 in Sarandë, People's Socialist Republic of Albania) is a Greek female high jumper. She is competing with the athletics club A.O. Kouros Patron, situated in Patras. She ...

had cleared it. In the final, it was down to four athletes at 2 metres, in the process losing defending champion

Tia Hellebaut Tia Hellebaut (; born 16 February 1978 in Antwerp) is a retired Belgian track and field athlete, as well as a chemist, who started out in her sports career in the heptathlon, and afterwards specialized in the high jump event. She has cleared 2.05 ...

and reigning indoor champion Chaunte Lowe.

Ruth Beitia Ruth Beitia Vila (; born 1 April 1979) is a retired high jumper who was the 2016 Olympic champion in the women's high jump. She was also a politician in the Partido Popular and a member of the Parliament of Cantabria. Biography Beitia firs ...

was clean at 2.00 with one earlier miss, but she could go no further. Brigetta Barrett was getting into a habit of clearing heights on her second attempt. But she also cleared 2.03 on her second attempt, while Svetlana Shkolina cleared on her third, putting Barrett in silver medal position and Shkolina in the bronze position. The leader was reigning world champion

Anna Chicherova Anna Vladimirovna Chicherova (russian: Анна Владимировна Чичерова; born 22 July 1982) is a Russian high jumper. She was the gold medalist at the 2012 London Olympics and the 2011 World Championships in Athletics and origin ...

, clean through 2.03, which would have been enough for the gold medal. But the competition went on, all three attempting 2.05. Chicherova cleared on her second attempt while Barrett and Shkolina missed three times to settle the medals for sure. Seven years after the competition, on 1 February 2019, Svetlana Shkolina was among twelve Russian track and field athletes found guilty of doping during the 2012 Summer Olympics, and was stripped of her bronze medal. In 2021, IOC reallocated her bronze medal to

of Spain, the athlete who originally got fourth in the event. In 2016, victorious Chicherova's 2008 drug re-test returned positive for

dehydrochlormethyltestosterone Chlorodehydromethyltestosterone (CDMT; brand name Oral Turinabol), also known as 4-chloro-17β-hydroxy17α-methylandrosta-1,4-dien-3-one, is an anabolic–androgenic steroid (AAS). It is the 4-chloro-substituted derivative of metandienone (dehy ...

(turinabol). Her 2008 bronze was rescinded, but 2012 gold was not affected.IAAF.org. The XXIX Olympic Games. High Jump women.
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Competition format

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.

Schedule

All times are

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(

UTC+1 UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in: *Central European Time *West Africa Time *Western European Summer Time ** B ...

)

Records

, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.

Results

Qualification

Qual. rule: qualification standard 1.96m (Q) or at least best 12 qualified (q). r = retired from competition

Final

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics - Women's high jump Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics High jump at the Olympics 2012 in women's athletics Women's events at the 2012 Summer Olympics