Athletics · 1968 · Mexico City, Mexico
The Flop That Rewrote the High Jump
An American college student wins Olympic high jump gold using a backwards, head-first technique that coaches had mocked for years, and permanently changes how the event is contested.
2.24m (Olympic record)
Winning height
"Fosbury Flop"
Technique
Gold
Medal
Every serious high jumper in 1968 cleared the bar face-down, using the straddle or Western roll technique. Dick Fosbury, a civil engineering student from Oregon State, had spent years developing an odd alternative: running up, turning his back to the bar, and arching over it head and shoulders first, landing on his upper back and neck.
It looked strange enough that commentators and rival coaches called it awkward, even reckless, and it only became viable once foam landing mats replaced sand and sawdust pits. In Mexico City, Fosbury used it to clear 2.24 metres, an Olympic record, and win gold ahead of the USSR's Valentin Gavrilov and Ed Caruthers of the United States.
Within a decade the 'Fosbury Flop' had become the standard technique at every level of the sport, from schools to the Olympics, effectively retiring the straddle style overnight. Fosbury never won another major title, but the technique that carried his name outlived every jumper who tried to compete without it.
Watch the Moment
