Early life Barshim was born in
Doha to a
Sudanese family. He has five brothers and a sister. His father was also a track and field athlete, which is why almost all of the Barsham children became active in this sport, except for
Meshaal Barsham who later became a football goalkeeper. Barsham tried running and
long jumping in his youth. He said in an IAAF interview, "I grew up, nothing special, like any kid in Qatar. I joined a club because my father was going to the club training so sometimes he used to take me there with him. I knew athletics because of my father." He attended an Arabic school in Doha, where he learned to speak English. At age 15 he switched to high jump because it looked more fun. He began training in Doha at the
Aspire Academy. He finished training at ASPIRE in 2009, when his personal best was 2.14 m. In September 2009, he met his new (and current) coach from
Poland/
Sweden Stanisław "Stanley" Szczyrba who started to train him in Doha. He has been his coach since and as Barsham said, "
He is more than a coach, we are like father and son." During the summer season in
Europe, they spent time at Szczyrba's home in
Warsaw, Poland, and they also trained in Sweden so that Barsham did not have to waste time flying to and from Qatar between competitions. Barsham enjoyed his first international successes in 2010. He set an indoor Qatari record in
Gothenburg in early February with a jump of 2.25 m, and then went on to take the gold medal at the
2010 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships, winning with a clearance of 2.20 m. He was selected to represent Qatar at the
2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships in
Doha and his performance of 2.23 m left him in fourteenth place in the qualifying round. These feats made him the first ever graduate of the ASPIRE Academy competing at the World Championships as well as holding the national record in an
Olympic sport. In May 2010, Barsham won the Arab Athletics Championships for Juniors in
Cairo, clearing an outdoor best of 2.23 m, and then went on to secure the continental junior title at the
2010 Asian Junior Athletics Championships. His winning mark at the competition (2.31 m) was a national record and a world-leading mark for junior athletes – and it was also the best jump by a junior since
Huang Haiqiang cleared 2.32 m in 2006. He went on to win at the
2010 World Junior Championships in Athletics in
Moncton, winning with a height of 2.30 m.
2011 He won gold in the
Asian Athletics Championships in
Kobe after clearing a height of 2.35 m, a new national and championship record. He continued his good form and won a gold medal at the
Military World Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with a 2.28 m clearance. He made his debut on the global senior stage at the
2011 World Athletics Championships in
Daegu and reached the final, missing a medal on count-back and ranking seventh overall. He became high-jump champion at the Gulf Council Championships and the Arab Championships before capping off his year with yet another international gold medal at the
2011 Pan Arab Games held on home soil in
Doha.
2012 At the 2012 indoor Asian Championships, held in Hangzhou, China, on 19 February 2012, Barsham won the gold medal and established a new personal best (and national record) of , breaking the previous championship record of 2.34: it was also the highest indoor jump in the world, to date in 2012. He began jumping at 2.10 and had first try clearances at 2.15, 2.20 and 2.24, before missing once at 2.28, temporarily falling to second place when Chinese jumper Zhang Guowei cleared on his first try. Zhang then failed at 2.31, while Barsham resumed his flawless jumping with first try clears at 2.31, 2.34 and 2.37. He then failed in three attempts at 2.40. At the 2012 Olympic Games, held in London, United Kingdom, on 7 August, Barsham won the bronze medal with a jump of 2.29, finishing in a 3-way tie for third place with Derek Drouin from Canada and Robert Grabarz from Great Britain. In 2019 the winner of the competition, Ivan Ukhov, was stripped of the gold medal by the Court of Arbitration in Sport for doping offences and in 2021 Barsham, alongside Drouin and Grabarz, were promoted to joint silver medals for the event. Barsham suffered a back injury in early 2012 and (later) said he was not healthy at the London Olympics. The problem was found to be a stress fracture in the fifth (L5)
Lumbar vertebrae. In an interview for the IAAF in April 2013, Barsham said:
"It started hurting bad before the (2012) World Indoor Championships and then I had to stop for a bit. Before the Olympics, I had to stop again, but we have a really good sports center in Doha and I also received treatment in Warsaw." Barsham's indoor season ended on 6 February as he did not want to risk further injury, hoping to be able to thrill his hometown fans when the IAAF's
Diamond League opens 2013's outdoor season in Doha on 10 May. Mutaz started his outdoor season on 10 April 2013 with an "appearance" at the GCC Athletics Championships held at Doha's Khalifa International Stadium. He took only two jumps, casually running in from almost half the distance of his usual approach to clear 2.19 meters with his first attempt and then improving to 2.25 with his second. Having clinched the win, he quit to avoid hurting his back. His younger brother
Muamer took second place with a jump of 2.16. At the
Prefontaine Classic Diamond League Meet in
Eugene, Oregon (1 June 2013), Barsham won, being one of 3 men to clear 2.36 (7'8 3/4"), a new meet record. Barsham was in the lead with no misses. After everyone missed their attempts at 2.39, Barsham, jumping last, saved his final (third) attempt for one try at new personal best of 2.40 (7' 10") and made it. He became the 8th man in history to have cleared 2.40 outdoors, and the first since 2000. His best result in 2013 was a silver medal at the
2013 IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Moscow, Russia. Bondarenko and Barsham's jumps are the best in the world since Javier Sotomayor of Cuba cleared 2.42 m in Seville on 5 June 1994. Only Sotomayor, on four occasions, has jumped higher than these two men. The two men also made multiple attempts at the record in the final Diamond League meet of the 2014 season in Brussels. Barsham again came closest in his final attempt, clipping the bar with his heel. He won the competition with a PB of 2.43 giving him the status of being the second-highest jumper of all time, behind Sotomayor's two record jumps of 2.44 and 2.45. In the same year Barsham also won at the
2014 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in Hangzou, China and the
2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea. That year he also won the IAAF Diamond League stops in Lausanne, Switzerland and Birmingham. Additionally, he also won the IAAF Diamond League stops in Zurich, Birmingham, Paris and Shanghai in 2017. At the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Birmingham, UK he placed second as well. In the same year he won the IAAF Diamond League stops in Oslo and Eugene as well as the 8th Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in Tehran, Iran. Both Tamberi and Barsham agreed to share the gold medal in a rare instance in Olympic history where the athletes of different nations had agreed to share the same medal. After the failed jumps Barsham asked the referee "Can we have two golds?" and when hearing the answer was yes, embracing Tamberi saying "History, my friend".
2024 Barsham won the bronze medal in the
high jump event at the
2024 Summer Olympics; clearing a height of 2.34 m. ==Personal life==