Dick Fosbury

Dick Fosbury, the lanky leaper who completely revamped the technical discipline of high jump and won an Olympic gold medal with his “Fosbury Flop,” has died ...

The term “Fosbury Flop” is credited to the Medford Mail-Tribune, which wrote the headline “Fosbury Flops Over the Bar” after one of his high school meets. Among his discoveries over the years was a need to move his takeoff point farther back for higher jumps. He changed an entire event forever with a technique that looked crazy at the time but the result made it the standard.”

Oregon student won gold at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico and revolutionised his event with back-first technique.

By the next Olympics in 1972, 28 of the 40 competitors were using his style. “The last straddle jumper at the Olympics was in Seoul (in 1988). Dick will be greatly missed by friends and fans from around the world.

The 'Fosbury Flop' technique bagged Fosbury a gold medal in Mexico 1968 and revolutonised the high jump.

He failed to qualify to defend his crown at the 1972 Olympics, but his legacy was intact with well over half of the 40 high jump competitors by then using his trademark style. I made a new height, I tried again, and successively I was able to clear six inches higher than my previous best, and that change made me competitive, it kept me in the game, and I converted from sitting on the bar to laying flat on my back.” In 2008 Fosbury announced that he had been diagnosed with stage one lymphoma, but said in an interview six years later that he was in remission and clear of the disease.

The year was 1968 and Peckham was in Mexico City, competing at his second Olympic Games for Australia as a high jumper.

Peckham beat Fosbury by straddling at the Pacific Conference Games in 1969 and admits he even thought the flop wouldn’t last. Now it is has become more of a speed event and a flexibility event. I even wrote a paper saying the straddle would always be better. But his unique contribution to sport was celebrated on Tuesday when it was announced he had died of cancer, aged 76. “It was a big talking point around the village. As the reigning Commonwealth Games champion, Peckham was regarded as a strong chance for gold.

He died peacefully in his sleep after a "brief recurrence of lymphoma", his agent Ray Schulte said. Fosbury, who won gold at the Mexico Olympics in 1968, ...

"And (it) took huge courage at the time to even consider something so dangerous. "Dick Fosbury was a true LEGEND! My results were getting better." Initially, the idea attracted a certain amount of ridicule, the term Fosbury Flop credited to the Medford Mail-Tribune, which wrote the headline "Fosbury Flops Over the Bar" after one of his high school meetings. The Montreal Games in 1976 was the last Olympics in which a high jumper won using a technique other than the Fosbury Flop. Olympic champion Dick Fosbury, who revolutionised the high jump with the "Fosbury Flop", has died at the age of 76.

Dick Fosbury, the lanky leaper who revolutionized the technical discipline of high jump and won Olympic gold with his 'Fosbury Flop,' has died.

“And he had the guts and fortitude to stick with it in the face of criticism.” The term “Fosbury Flop” is credited to the Medford Mail-Tribune, which wrote the headline “Fosbury Flops Over the Bar” after one of his high school meets. “He’s the creator of what we still do to this day.” As a kid, Fosbury threw himself into sports as a way of dealing with grief after his younger brother, Greg, was killed by a drunk driver while the two boys were riding bikes. Due to the equipment then, it was something that was a little on edge to attempt.” Among his discoveries was a need to move his takeoff point farther back for higher jumps, so he could change the apex of the parabola shape of his jump to clear the bar. “I knew I had to change my body position, and that’s what started first the revolution, and over the next two years, the evolution,” Fosbury said in a 2014 interview with the Corvallis (Ore.) Gazette-Times. “During my junior year, I carried on with this new technique, and each meet I continued to evolve or change, but I was improving. It was a convention-defying move, and with the world watching, Fosbury cleared 2.24 meters (7 feet, 4¼ inches) to win the gold and set an Olympic record. Fosbury started tinkering with a new technique in the early ‘60s as a teenager at Medford High School in Oregon. By the next Olympics, 28 of the 40 jumpers were using Fosbury’s technique. At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Fosbury took off at an angle, leaped backward,

Fosbury's dramatic upturn in performance after adapting his technique propelled the American to shock Olympic gold and rewrote the manual on high jump ...

Fosbury was not like the others; this was a man who had missed the opening ceremony to drive out into the desert on his own and watch the sun set. I received my medal and I wanted to be back on the ground with everyone else.” High jump’s revolution required a man to hear his critics and do it anyway. “The laziest high-jumper in the world”; “a fish flopping into a boat”; “a two-legged camel,” referring to his jaunty run-up. He was struggling with the on-trend scissor technique, and when his high-school coach encouraged him to try the more traditional ‘Western roll’, results got worse. The method immediately added several inches to his personal best and, four months before the Olympics, a relatively unknown Fosbury won the US national college championships.

Dick Fosbury, the American athlete who revamped the technical discipline of high jump and won an Olympic gold medal with his 'Fosbury Flop', has died aged ...

“And he had the guts and fortitude to stick with it in the face of criticism.” As a kid, Fosbury threw himself into sports as a way of dealing with the grief after his younger brother, Greg, was killed by a drunken driver while the two boys were riding bikes. Fosbury started tinkering with a new technique in the early 60s, as a teenager in Oregon. The technique was the subject of scorn and ridicule in some corners. The term Fosbury Flop is credited to the Medford Mail-Tribune, which wrote the headline “Fosbury Flops Over the Bar” after one of his high school meets. “He’s the creator of what we still do to this day."

Olympic champion Dick Fosbury died peacefully in his sleep following a short bout with a recurrence of lymphoma, his agent said.

Fosbury did not defend his Olympic title in 1972 but 28 out of the 40 Olympic high jumpers in Munich used his method. I received my medal and I wanted to be back on the ground with everyone else.” On the eve of the high jump competition, he travelled in a friend’s Volkswagen bus into the city and spent an entire night out at the pyramids. In an accompanying article, the reporter wrote that he looked like “a fish flopping in a boat” after it had been caught. And so Fosbury also began experimenting with his new method during high school competitions in the years leading up to the Rome Olympics. This evolved with the advent of sand and sawdust in the landing area to what was known as the forward ‘straddle’, a rolling method that Fosbury, who was 6ft 5in tall, struggled badly to perfect.

The American Olympic champion Dick Fosbury, who revolutionised the high jump with a technique that became known as the Fosbury Flop, has died aged 76.

At first commentators were baffled by his ungainly technique but it caught on and soon everyone was doing it.

He founded an engineering company in Blaine County, Idaho, and turned his hand to designing bike and running paths for the local area. When he came to make his third (unsuccessful) bid to set a new world record of 2.29m, the crowd began keeping time with him, entirely in his thrall. By the end of the decade he had taken up an offer to study Engineering at Oregon State University, graduating in 1972. His coach then attempted to teach him the western roll – a kind of glorified hop in which the leg farthest from the bar lifts off first – but with little success. Having abandoned football after his front teeth were knocked out on the helmet of a fellow player, he turned instead to athletics, finding that, at 6ft 4in tall, he was physically well-suited to the high jump. Growing up in the city of Medford, he made it on to his high school’s basketball and American football teams but proved too gangly and awkward to make much of an impression. Though the appellation stuck, Fosbury’s coach Berny Wagner remained dubious as to the move’s efficacy and even its legality, advising his charge to stick to the western roll for future competitions. The picture was published by The Medford Mail-Tribune with the caption “Fosbury flops over the bar”. He therefore experimented with raising his hips as he jumped, and found that this allowed him to add an extra six inches to his personal best. Fosbury, however, had known nothing of the science at the time, relying instead on instinct and a determination to beat his own personal best. I received my medal and I wanted to be back on the ground with everyone else.” The Los Angeles Times compared Fosbury’s rather ungainly style to “a guy being pushed out of a 30-storey window”, while Sports Illustrated thought he came towards the bar “with a gait that may call to mind a two-legged camel”.

American Olympic champion athlete Dick Fosbury has died at the age of 76, his former agent has confirmed. The revolutionary high-jump star is renowned for ...

Fosbury shot to fame during the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City when he won a gold medal in a high-jump final that lasted over four hours. Fellow Olympic champions also rushed to pay emotional tributes to Dick Fosbury, with four-time winning sprinter Michael Johnson saying: “The world legend is probably used too often, Dick Fosbury was a true LEGEND! The revolutionary high-jump star is renowned for inventing a technique widely known as the Fosbury Flop.

Dick Fosbury, the lanky leaper who revamped the technical discipline of high jump and won an Olympic gold medal with his “Fosbury Flop,” has died.

“And he had the guts and fortitude to stick with it in the face of criticism.” As a kid, Fosbury threw himself into sports as a way of dealing with the grief after his younger brother, Greg, was killed by a drunken driver while the two boys were riding bikes. The technique was the subject of scorn and ridicule in some corners. Among his discoveries was a need to move his takeoff point farther back for higher jumps, so he could change the apex of the parabola shape of his jump to clear the bar. Due to the equipment then, it was something that was a little on edge to attempt.” It was a convention-defying move, and with the world watching, Fosbury cleared 2.24 meters (7 feet, 4 1/4 inches) to win the gold and set an Olympic record.

American Olympic champion athlete Dick Fosbury has died at the age of 76, his former agent has confirmed. The revolutionary high-jump star is renowned for ...

Fosbury shot to fame during the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City when he won a gold medal in a high-jump final that lasted over four hours. Fellow Olympic champions also rushed to pay emotional tributes to Dick Fosbury, with four-time winning sprinter Michael Johnson saying: “The world legend is probably used too often, Dick Fosbury was a true LEGEND! The revolutionary high-jump star is renowned for inventing a technique widely known as the Fosbury Flop.