The 26-year-old jumped 2.36m in the Swiss city yesterday to reclaim the Diamond League Trophy he lost to American Erik Kynard last summer.
Barshim has had a blockbuster of a season winning all six Diamond League events he participated in, including the season opener back home in Doha, with the world title victory at the London World Championships earlier this month a highlight.
In Birmingham, he jumped the world leading mark of 2.40m.
Having jumped that landmark height each season since 2013, Barshim is the first man in history to clear 2.40m or higher for five consecutive years. His winning jump was also the first 2.40m leap on British soil since 2000.
“I was thinking about going higher,” Barshim said after his victory in Zurich yesterday. “But the weather was not good. It was too cold, it had rained. The ground was wet.
“But I think 2.36 is the second best effort in the world this year. On Sunday I will do my last competition for this season in Eberstadt in Germany. Perhaps there the weather is better and probably my result.”
Farah wins final track race
Mo Farah won the final track race of his career by the skin of his teeth yesterday, clinching a dramatic 5,000 metres win after three chasing rivals collided with each other as they approached the finish line.
The quadruple Olympic champion led down the final straight but Ethiopian world champion Muktar Edris came powering through and appeared set to sneak victory on the line.
However Edris fell to the ground after being clipped from behind by American Paul Chelimo, in turn tripping Ethiopian Yomif Kejelcha on the outside.
Chelimo stumbled over the line in second and Edris’s momentum took him over in third.
Briton Farah, beaten by Edris in the World Championship 5,000 metres final two weeks ago, will run marathons from next year.
Miller-Uibo shocks Schippers and Thompson in 200m
Bahamas’ Shaunae Miller-Uibo stunned world champion Dafne Schippers and Olympic gold medallist Elaine Thompson to win the women’s 200m event.
Miller-Uibo, who was only third in the event at the recent world championships in London, won in a time of 21.88sec ahead of Thompson (22.00) and Marie-Josee Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast (22.09), the silver medallist in London.
Schippers struggled home in fourth place (22.36).
It was the second shock failure of the season for Thompson, the Jamaican sprinter who captured Olympic gold in the 100m and 200m in Rio in 2016.
In the 100m at the world championships, she finished in a lowly fifth place.
However, she will get a last chance to redeem herself at the concluding Diamond League meet of the season in Brussels on September 1 when she runs in the 100m.
Bahrain’s Ruth Jebet ran the second fastest women’s 3,000m steeplechase winning in 8min 55.29sec.
The Kenyan-born Olympic champion, 20, was two and a half seconds off her own world record of 8:52.78 set in Paris in August last year.
Jebet had a disappointing world championships where she finished fifth but she bounced back on Thursday beating Kenya’s Beatrice Chepkoech (8:59.84), the runner who famously missed the water jump barrier in London and had to retrace her steps.
World champion Emma Coburn of the United States was fourth in 9min 14.81sec.
