Hamish Kerr Is The World Champion

17 Sep 2025, 07:22 by Athletics New Zealand · SCOOP

Kiwi fever in Tokyo continues tonight as Hamish Kerr has won the 2025 World Athletics Championships in the High Jump. Kerr’s winning height of 2.36 equalled his own NZ and Oceania records, and his the highest height cleared in 2025.

Kerr has now completed an unofficial high jump grand slam, having won the Olympic Games, The Commonwealth Games, The World Indoor Championships, The Diamond League Final and now the World Athletics Championships.

Kerr’s road to the title was not smooth sailing, requiring three attempts to clear 2.31 and 2.34 metres. However Kerr delivered when he needed to step up, clearing 2.36 metres with a massive clearance over the bar. The leap resulted in silver medalist Sanghyeok Woo (KOR) passing his second attempt at 2.36m giving himself two attempts to return to the lead of the competition at 2.38 metres.

Woo never looked close to clearing the 2.38m bar, with Kerr having to calmly wait until Woo officially fouled out of the competition to celebrate.

Kerr took to the infield for an emphatic lap, reminiscent of his iconic lap of the field in Paris after claiming Olympic gold.

The result flipped the placings from earlier in the year at the 2025 World Indoor Championships, where Woo took out the gold medal, and Kerr settled for silver in Nanjing, China.

Third place was Jan Štefela (CZE) who cleared 2.31 to win the bronze medal on countback from Oleh Doroschuck (UKR).

Kerr’s medal makes this the most succesful ever world athletics championships for New Zealand, bringing our medal talley to two golds for the 2025 World Athletics Championships. New Zealand currently sits fourth on the medal table, ahead of Jamaica, Sweden, Spain, and France.

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