Efe
Updated Friday, January 19, 2024-08:28
Canadian pole vaulter Shawn Barber, world champion in Beijing 2015, died this Thursday at the age of 29 at his home in Kingwood, Texas (United States), for reasons that are still unknown.
Barber, who
had not competed since 2020
, became
world champion in Beijing 2015 at only 21 years old
thanks to a
jump of 5.90 meters,
a mark that he could not repeat in 2016, at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, in which he was tenth with a mark of 5.50 meters.
That same year, on January 16,
2016, in a competition in Reno
, the Canadian athlete
reached six meters
, a mark that he would not achieve again in his short professional career.
"More than just an incredible athlete, Shawn was such a good-hearted person who always put others before himself. It's tragic to lose such a good person at such a young age," his agent Paul Doyle told
The Associated Press
for report the news.
Barber also won a Diamond League in Zurich, Switzerland in 2015, the Pan American Games in Toronto, Canada the same year, and five NCAA national championships between 2013 and 2018.
He competed for the first time at the age of 7.
Barber first competed in the pole vault at the age of seven,
shattering the United States high school record
by more than a foot before winning back-to-back NCAA indoor titles for the University of Akron in 2014 and '15 and then the 2015 NCAA outdoor title, Reuters reports.
The jumper had dual nationality, as
his father George, his coach for most of his life
, was born in Kincardine, northwest of Toronto.
When he was first named to a Canadian team, he said he chose to compete for Canada to follow in his father's footsteps.
Barber is survived by his father, mother Ann and brother David.