Hugues Fabrice Zango

Zango's debut at an international athletics competition was at the 2013 Summer Universiade, where he competed in the triple jump.[3] In the qualification round his best jump was 15.74 metres, a distance that qualified him for the final.[3] Zango finished sixth with a jump of 15.96 metres in the final.[4] His jump was 1.05 metres smaller than the jump of gold medalist, Ukrainian Viktor Kuznyetsov, and 61 centimetres smaller than the bronze medalist, Kazakhstani Yevgeniy Ektov.[4]

Also in 2013 was the 2013 Jeux de la Francophonie.[5] At the 2013 Jeux de la Francophonie, Zango competed in the triple jump.[5] He jumped 15.97 metres to finish tenth in a twelve-athlete field.[5]

Zango's next major competition was the 2015 Summer Universiade, where he competed in both the long jump and the triple jump.[6][7] In the long jump, Zango's best jump was 6.73 metres, a distance that placed him 30th in qualification, out of 36 athletes.[6][lower-alpha 1] He did not qualify for the final.[6] In the triple jump, Zango qualified for the final after jumping a distance of 16.59 metres in the qualification round.[7] In the final, Zango jumped 16.76 metres, a distance that won him the silver medal.[8] Zango's jump was 53 centimetres smaller than the gold-medalist's (Russian Dmitriy Sorokin's) jump of 17.29 metres.[8] Zango jumped the same distance as bronze medalist Xu Xiaolong (China) but, as Zango's second best jump was further than Xiaolong's, Zango won the silver medal on count back.[8] Zango was Burkina Faso's only medalist at the 2015 Summer Universiade.[9]

Zango competed at the 2015 World Championships in the triple jump.[10] In the competition, all three of his jumps were fouls and therefore he recorded no mark (NM).[10] Zango then competed in the 2015 African Games.[11] Zango finished fifth in the triple jump with a jump of 16.36 metres.[11] Zango was 19 centimetres behind the bronze medalist, Mamadou Chérif Dia of Mali.[11] At the 2016 African Athletics Championships, Zango won the silver medal in the triple jump.[12] He jumped 16.81 metres, which was 32 centimetres less than the distance jumped by the gold medalist, Nigerian Tosin Oke.[12] Zango jumped four centimetres further than the bronze medalist, Godfrey Khotso Mokoena of South Africa, and 20 centimetres further than the fourth-placed athlete, Mauritian Jonathan Drack.[12]

On 16 Jan 2021, in his final attempt jumping at a jumps-only indoor meet in Aubière, France, Zango jumped 18.07 m (59 ft 3+1⁄4 in) to improve his coach, Teddy Tamgho's Indoor World Record by 15 cm.[18] He became the first world record holder from Burkina Faso and the first African to hold a world record in a jumping event.[19] The jump ranks him the 6th performer in history, indoors or outdoors.

• All information taken from IAAF profile.

Zango graduated with a Master's degree in Electronics, Electrical energy, and Automation from the University of Artois (Hauts-de-France, France) in 2018. Subsequently, he is working on a PhD degree in electrical engineering at the same university.[21][22] He expects to complete the degree in 2022.[17]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hugues Fabrice Zango.

• Hugues Fabrice Zango at World Athletics
• Hugues Fabrice Zango at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)