Barshim sails to dominant world high jump gold

LONDON, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Qatar's Mutaz Essa Barshim secured the global high jump title his talent has promised for so long when he completed a faultless series in the World Championships on Sunday, culminating in a winning leap of 2.35 metres.

The Qatari, the second-highest jumper in history after Cuba's world record holder Javier Sotomayor, has won silver and bronze at the last two Olympics and silver in the 2013 World Championships.

But he was a class apart on Sunday, having qualified without a fail he went through the final never looking remotely close to dislodging the bar.

With the gold secured he went agonisingly close to clearing 2.40 - five centimetres short of the 1993 world record.

Russian Danil Lysenko, competing as a neutral athlete, took silver with 2.32m while Majd Eddin Ghazal of Syria had the best record of three men who cleared 2.29 to take bronze - his country's first world championship medal for a man.

Canada's world and Olympic champion Derek Drouin was unable to defend his title in London because of an Achilles injury. (Editing by Ed Osmond)