Michael Mason

Biography

Michael Mason has been one of Canada’s top high jumpers since he won gold at the 2004 IAAF Junior World Championships. He has gone on to be a four-time Olympian, making his debut at Beijing 2008 before becoming a finalist at London 2012 where he finished eighth.

Mason was the junior national champion in 2004 and 2005 and won gold for Team BC at the 2005 Canada Games. He won back-to-back senior national titles in 2007 and 2008 before finishing as runner-up to future Olympic champion Derek Drouin in 2010 and from 2012 to 2016. Mason won three more national titles from 2017 to 2019.  

Mason represented Canada at his first of three Commonwealth Games in 2010. He then had to undergo surgery in December 2010 to remove a bone chip in the ankle of his takeoff foot. It took a full year to recover, during which time he considered quitting his sport before deciding he would persevere.

In 2013, Mason competed at his first World Athletics Championships. He then finished eighth at the 2014 World Indoor Championships before achieving a career highlight with his bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The next summer, he added a silver medal at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto, finishing behind only Drouin. Less than two weeks earlier he had recorded a personal best jump of 2.33m in Edmonton, a height he would match in August, ahead of the World Athletics Championships.

In 2018, Mason was again a finalist at the Commonwealth Games. Late in the summer he won silver at the NACAC Championships in Toronto and then won his first Diamond League medal, taking silver in Birmingham. At Lima 2019, he won his second Pan Am Games silver medal. He followed up by winning his first Diamond League gold medal in Paris and capped his season with a career-best seventh place finish at the world championships, jumping 2.30m.

Mason competed collegiately for the University of British Columbia, where he set the NAIA high jump record. While at UBC he also represented Canada at a pair of Universiades, winning silver at his second in 2009.

A Little More About Michael

Getting into the Sport: Started doing track and field at age 10 after a grade 5 classmate brought her medals to class one day… It was her brother who showed him how to arch his back over a high jump bar in one of his first practices… Outside Interests: Enjoys drawing, photography, video games, riding his bike, travelling… Earned his Bachelor of Human Kinetics from the University of British Columbia in 2010… Odds and Ends: Collects Christmas tree ornaments from his travels…