Mutaz Barshim was only two years old when Javier Sotomayor became the first man in history to clear eight feet in high jump. His leap of 2.45m in 1993 in Salamanca, Spain, remains a world record, many having tried to better it over the years only to come up short.
But while Sotomayor and Cuba get ready to celebrate the record’s 25th year next year, they will be casting an anxious eye across the world, especially at meets where Mutaz Barshim will be competing. Because if there is one athlete who can gatecrash their anniversary party, it is the lanky Qatari who took the silver at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics last year, having won the bronze four years earlier in London, among other stellar achievements in the interim.
Barshim is one of a new breed of talented athletes from Qatar who have their roots in the country, but he is already a global star with just the small matter of two centimetres separating him from all-time greatness, having leapt 2.43m, the second-highest jump in history, at the Diamond League meeting in Brussels in 2014.
 In sport, where even a thousandth of a second or a mere milimetre could prove the difference between everlasting glory and heartbreaking failure, two centimetres may seem like a huge mountain to climb.
But if there is one thing that Barshim has in abundance it is confidence.
“Yeah, why not,” the 26-year-old said when asked whether he is ready to break Sotomayor’s record this season on the sidelines of an event at the Torch Hotel yesterday.
“I don’t like to doubt myself. You have to believe in yourself, but at the same time you can’t rush. Great things take time,” added the Qatari, who was the only man to clear 2.40m in 2016.
Indeed, it is this self-belief that has played a vital role in Barshim’s rise as an athlete. By his own admission he was “nothing special” in his group of 16-year-olds before he was put under the charge of Stanislaw “Stanley” Szczyrba, a no-nonsense Polish coach.
Szczyrba’s tough methods initially came as a shock to the slender Barshim’s system and there were times when he thought he won’t be able to cope and wanted to drop out. However, with his coach’s total commitment – they are still together and enjoy a father-son like relationship – Barshim pulled up his socks and developed into a confident young man and a world beating athlete.
This self-belief was to come in handy in 2012 at the London Olympics when he shrugged off a painful stress fracture in the fifth lumbar vertebra of his spine to win a bronze for Qatar.
Although his doctors had given him the go-ahead to take part in the event, he was warned it would be too risky if he exerted too much. But with the help of painkillers the then 21-year-old summoned all his willpower to share the bronze with Britain’s Robbie Grabarz and Canada’s Derek Drouin.
The Qatari has several events lined up this year where he can aim for Sotomayor’s record, none more important that the World Championships in London.
 “Yeah, the World Championships in August is the main target. Before that we have the Diamond League in Doha and a few other events where I will participating,” he said.
Barshim added that the silver medal at the Olympics last year has not changed him one bit.
“I am the same person, nothing has changed,” he said sporting his ready trademark smile. But it could get a bit wider a few months from now if he indeed achieves his dream.