The year he turned 8, he hurt his right foot in a car accident. His right foot was smaller than his left afterward. In 2006 he joined the track team at Daejeon Jungri Elementary School and took up the high jump at coach Yoon Jong-hyung’s suggestion.
The year he turned 17, he cleared 2.20 m to win the boys’ high jump at the World Youth Championships, while a student at Chungnam High School. The next year he took bronze at the World Junior Championships and finished 10th at the Incheon Asian Games.
In 2015 he joined a professional team and won the National Sports Festival. In 2016 he cleared 2.29 m in Osaka to earn a place at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, but did not reach the final there. In 2017 he cleared 2.30 m in Gimcheon and won gold at the Asian Championships in Bhubaneswar, India.
In 2018 he cleared 2.28 m for silver at the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games. It was the first Asian Games medal for a South Korean men’s high jumper in 16 years. In 2019 he met coach Kim Do-gyun while dealing with a stress fracture and poor results.
The breakthrough yearThe year he turned 25, he enlisted in the Armed Forces Athletic Corps in March, and in August cleared 2.35 m in the Tokyo Olympics final to finish fourth. It broke the national record set by Lee Jin-taek in 1997, 24 years earlier.
In 2022 he became the first South Korean to win gold at the World Athletics Indoor Championships and took silver at the World Championships in Eugene. He was discharged in September. In 2023 he won the Diamond League Final and took silver again at the Hangzhou Asian Games.
In 2024 he was seventh in the Paris Olympics final with 2.27 m. In 2025 he won the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing after three years, and in September took a second World Championships silver, in Tokyo.
In 2026 he reached the podium at the World Indoor Championships for the fourth straight time, but his result fell sharply at a summer meet after a foot injury.
Woo Sang-hyeok (born Apr 23, 1996) won the boys’ high jump at the World Youth Championships on Jul 14, 2013, the year he turned 17, and became known when he cleared 2.35 m for fourth place at the Tokyo Olympics on Aug 1, 2021, the year he turned 25. He won his first World Championships silver in 2022, the year he turned 26.
Ages are by calendar year (the year minus the birth year), birthdays aside.