The 23-year-old Qatari athlete came within the brush of a calf of adding a centimetre to the world record of 2.45m set by Cuba's Javier Sotomayor in 1993.

In so doing, Barshim won his stupendous long-running competition with Ukraine's world and European champion Bohdan Bondarenko, who also had three attempts at 2.46m but had to settle for a best of 2.40 at the Belgacom Ivo Van Damme Memorial meeting as his rival took the high jump Diamond Race and $40,000 (£24,000/€30,000) jackpot.

Only Sotomajor himself has jumped higher with efforts of 2.44m and his world mark.

Once Russia's Olympic champion Ivan Uhkov, who has himself jumped 2.42m indoors this year, fouled out at 2.37, Barshim and Bondarenko had the competition to  themselves as they have so often this season, most notably when both cleared 2.42m at the New York Diamond League meeting.

Bondarenko, with first time clearances of 2.28m, 2.34m, 2.37m and 2.40m, looked on the brink of winning this latest battle on countback following Barshim's fouls at 2.28m and 2.37m, but the springy Qatari, two inches shorter than the Ukrainian at 6ft 3-and-a-half inches, produced the game-changing effort with his 2.43m clearance, having gone over 2.40m at the first attempt with what looked like six inches of space to spare.

Ultimately it was his timing rather than his lift that was lacking - and as long as he holds his back injuries at bay, he can surely improve on that.

"Of course it's possible to beat the record because it was set by a human," said Barshim.

"I just don't know when."

America's serial drugs cheat Justin Gatlin won the 100m and 200m at the Diamond League in Brussels, in a time in a shorter sprint that made the fifth fastest man in history ©Getty Images

The other performance which stood out for attention was the 100/200 metres double achieved by Justin Gatlin in 9.77sec - the fastest time run this year - and 19.71 respectively.  

Only four men - Jamaica's Asafa Powell, Yohan Blake and world record holder with 9.58 Usain Bolt, plus fellow US sprinter Tyson Gay - have run the 100 faster.

His 200m time was 0.03 outside the 2014 best he set in Monaco last month, and he seemed clearly disappointed with it.

The 2004 Olympic 100m champion nevertheless felt moved to do a victory jig for the cameras, although many observers will have felt more delight for Barshim given the American's history of doping suspensions.

"I wanted to go undefeated," Gatlin, who has been banned for drugs twice during his career, said.

"There's one man[Bolt] who's dominated for years and I want to come up against that."

France's world record holder in the pole vault, Renaud Lavillenie, earned his fifth Diamond Race winner's cheque with a clearance of 5.93m.

Allyson Felix, the Olympic 200m champion, produced a strong finish to a season which was essentially about returning to fitness following her hamstring tear in last year's world final.

She won the 200m in a 2014 world best of 22.02sec to claim the Diamond Race, holding off France's Myriam Soumare, who ran a personal best of 22.11, and a tired looking European champion Dafne Schippers, who clocked 22.30.

Allyson Felix, the Olympic 200m champion, rounded off her season with a 2014 best time victory in the Diamond Race for her event in Brussels ©AFP/Getty Images

Lynsey Sharp, Britain's European and Commonwealth 800m silver medallist, nearly followed up her first Diamond League win at Birmingham with another victory, but produced her final charge just too late to pass Brenda Martinez of the United States, who clocked 1min 58.84sec to the Scot's 1:58.94, with Diamond Race winner Eunice Sum, Kenya's world champion, third in the same time as Sharp.

Mercy Cherono of Kenya claimed her Diamond Race jackpot with a perfectly timed final sprint to take her clear of a hugely talented 3,000m field in 8.28.95, with Sifa Hassan of the Netherlands setting a national record of 8:29.38 in second place and Ethiopia's world indoor record holder Genzebe Dibaba third in 8:29.41.

Silas Kiplagat's celebrations on the line may have cost him the 1500m on the night, which went to Algeria's Taoufik Makhloufi in 3:31.78, but he was not too put out having secured the Diamond Race by five points from his nearest challengers Ayanleh Souleiman, who finished one place behind him, and fellow Kenyan Asbel Kiprop, who was 12th.

It was a measure of the talent of 21-year-old Kenyan Jairus Kipchoge Birech, who already had the men's 3,000m steeplechase Diamond Race secured, that he could leave France's double Olympic silver medallist Mahiedine Mekhissi-Bennabad labouring 30m in his wake as he won in 7:58.41 with a final lap of 62 seconds.

Robert Harting of Germany won the discus in 67.57m, and Barbora Spotakova of the Czech Republic secured the Diamond Race in the javelin with a 2014 world-leading effort of 67.99m.

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