Igor Paklin

Who is Igor Paklin?

Igor Paklin is a retired athlete who represented USSR and later Kyrgyzstan. He trained at Armed Forces sports society in Frunze.

Competing in the high jump, he won the 1987 World Indoor Championships as well as a silver medal at the 1987 World Championships for the USSR. His personal best jump of 2.41 metres was also the world record from September 4, 1985 to June 30, 1987, when Patrik Sjöberg beat it by one centimetre. His leap of 2.41m places him as the third highest jumper in history. Like all modern high jumpers, Paklin used the Fosbury Flop style, but of the eleven men in history to have cleared 2.40 meters or better, he was the first to do so jumping off his right leg. German jumper Carlo Thränhardt - in February 1988, Russian Vyacheslav Voronin - in August 2000 and Ukrainian Bohdan Bondarenko in 2013 - are the only other jumpers in history to clear 2.40 using a right foot take-off.

In 1996, Paklin was imprisoned for beating a business partner to death.