Dick Fosbury, the man who revolutionized the high jump, dies

“Dick will be greatly missed by friends and fans around the world. A true legend and friend to all,” he added.

Born in Portland, Oregon in 1947, Fosbury became one of the most influential athletes in track and field history, developing the groundbreaking high jump technique that transformed his sport in the 1960s.

Prior to Fosbury’s advent, high jumpers used to attempt to clear the bar using the belly roll technique, in which they rose face-first while attempting to rotate their bodies mid-jump over the bar.

Fosbury turned the tradition on its head with a new approach, which would become immortalized as the ‘Fosbury Flop’ and remains the standard technique used by elite high jumpers today.

Instead of attacking head-on, the lanky 6-foot-1 Fosbury would arch toward the bar on his run before leaping backwards and floping onto the mattress.

“Few athletes in history have made their mark in such a unique way as Dick Fosbury,” John Tansley, former United States high jump coach, wrote in 1980.

“It literally turned his specialty upside down,” he said.

Fosbury began experimenting with new forms of high jump while still at school, but his new approach first attracted worldwide attention in 1968.

His victory at the US college championships was followed by another at the Olympic trials in Los Angeles.

In the Olympic Games in Mexico City-1968Fosbury won the gold medal after clearing 2.24 m in his third jump, a new Olympic record, beating his teammate Ed Caruthers, while the Soviet Valentin Gavrilov took bronze.