Godfrey Khotso Mokoena

Godfrey Khotso Mokoena ( born March 6, 1985 in Heidelberg, Gauteng) is a South African athlete. He was 2008 World Indoor Champion and Olympic silver medalist in the long jump.

As a teenager, Mokoena was high jumper at the Youth World Championships 2001 he finished fifth. In 2002 he took up at the Junior World Championships in the long jump and was twelfth. Two years later he became junior world champion in the triple jump and second in the long jump. Between 2003 he was second in the triple jump and third in the long jump at the Pan-African Games. In Athens at the 2004 Olympic Games Mokoena failed in the triple jump qualification.

At the 2005 World Championships Mokoena took seventh place in the long jump. In March 2006, Mokoena fifth in the long jump at the World Indoor Championships in Moscow in 2006. One and a half weeks later Mokoena went to Melbourne at the Commonwealth Games. There he finished in fourth place in the long jump and won the triple jump silver behind Phillips Idowu. In the Africa Championships in 2006 Mokoena won silver in the long and triple jump. In 2007, he focused on the long jump. He won bronze at the Pan-African Games in Algiers and was fifth at the World Championships in Osaka. At the World Indoor Championships in Valencia in 2008 he jumped 8.08 meters and won the title with two centimeters ahead of the British Chris Tomlinson. At the Olympic Games in 2008 Mokoena succeeded in the long jump final at the fourth attempt, a jump of 8.24 m, with whom he won silver behind Irving Saladino. Also Second, he was charged with 8.47 m at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin in 2009, this time behind Dwight Phillips. In 2010 he occupied at the World Indoor Championships in Doha in second place and won at the African Championships in Nairobi.

At a height of 1.90 m his competition weight is 73 kg.

Bests

• Long jump: 8,50 m, July 4, 2009, Madrid Hall: 8.18 m 23 February, 2007, Paris

• Hall: 16.22 m February 20, 2007, Stockholm