US athlete Shelby McEwen has defended his decision not to accept a shared gold medal at Paris 2024 which cost him the chance to be Olympic champion.
McEwen was competing in the men’s high jump final on Saturday night as the games drew to a close and was tied in first place with New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr after clearing the 2.36m jump.
Both then failed to clear 2.38m and as they had the same number of failed jumps they were completely level.
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As a result, they had two choices: share the gold medal between them or compete in a jump-off, with both agreeing on the latter.
It backfired on the American however, as he lost the jump-off and had to settle for the silver medal.
His decision to snub a shared gold divided fans online, as while some could respect wanting to be an ‘outright champion’, others labelled the 28-year-old ‘crazy’.
But speaking at a press conference on Sunday, the final day of the games, McEwen insisted he had no regrets, saying: ‘If it was meant to be it would’ve been.
‘Shout out to Hamish for coming up to me, accepting a jump-off and I accepted it and I was all for it. I mean, hey, he got the gold and I got the silver.
‘At the end of the day, like he said it’s a sport. I mean I represent my country, just like he’s representing his. I’m representing my family just like he’s representing his.
‘At the end of the day we all want to be champions and the only respectful thing to do is walk away with one champion.’
It was in the men’s high jump in Tokyo three years ago that Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi and Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar found themselves in the same situation as McEwen and Kerr, but on that occasion they opted to share the gold in amazing scenes.
‘I have so much respect for what they did in Tokyo,’ Kerr said when asked for his take on the matter.
‘But I always thought that to add to the story and to be able to be given the chance to actually do the jump-off would be so amazing. I knew straight away that we were going to make history and we did that.
‘I’m pretty sure Shelby was in the same mindset because we just looked at each other and it was pretty simple. We both just nodded and off we went.
‘We talked to each other, and he was like, “Let’s jump-off”. And I was like, “I’m all for it”.’
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