Brave Hearts

Author(s): Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: Eye Care Foundation

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Let Everest Beckons
This is the story of a Russian athlete named Valery Brumel. Ever since man became civilised, he has tried to jump above his own height. It has been done many times in the past by different sports people, but never, never by such a margin as was done by the Soviet high-jumper Valery Brumel. In doing so, he became the uncrowned King of Soviet sports, particularly of the high jump athletic event. On July 21, 1963 he set a new world high-jump record of 7 ft. and 534 inches and thereby he cleared his own height of 6 ft. and 07/8 inches by 16 inches. The world record set by him came during a Soviet-US athletic summit meeting. For five long years he held this record that no one could break. He was not one who would feel satisfied just in retaining the record created by him. Instead, he went on establishing newer and newer records every time he participated in the high jump event.
At the age of eighteen, he had surprised everyone by jumping as high as 7 ft. and 194 inches in the 1960 world Olympics held in Rome. His compatriot Robert Shevlatze too had reached that height. Thereafter, on 18th July 1961, Brumel cleared the height of 7 ft. and 4 inches, setting yet another world record. The July 1963 record set by him, which was mentioned earlier, was the sixth consecutive record in his name.*
* It was in 1971 that this record was broken by the U.S. athlete P. Matzdorfe who established a new record then.
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