Dick Fosbury
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| Personal information | ||||||||||
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| Born |
March 6, 1947 Portland, Oregon |
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| Height | 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in) | |||||||||
| Weight | 83 kg (183 lb; 13.1 st) | |||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||
| Country | United States | |||||||||
| Sport | Athletics | |||||||||
| Event(s) | High jump | |||||||||
| College team | Oregon State University | |||||||||
| Club | Oregon State Beavers, Corvallis | |||||||||
| Achievements and titles | ||||||||||
| Personal best(s) | 2.24 m (1968) | |||||||||
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Medal record
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Richard Douglas Fosbury (born March 6, 1947) is an American retired high jumper, who is considered one of the most influential athletes in the history of track and field. Besides winning a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics, he revolutionized the high jump event, with a unique "back-first" technique, now known as the Fosbury Flop, adopted by almost all high jumpers today. His method was to sprint diagonally towards the bar, then curve and leap backwards over the bar, which gave him a much lower center of mass in flight (it was actually below his body) than traditional techniques. He continues to be involved in athletics and serves on the executive board of the World Olympians Association. In 2014 Fosbury ran for a seat in the Idaho House of Representatives.
Canadian high jumper Debbie Brill concurrently developed a similar technique called the "Brill Bend" but Fosbury's Olympic success brought worldwide fame to his name for the technique.
Fosbury, who was born in Portland, Oregon, first started experimenting with a new high jumping technique at age 16, while attending Medford High School. Fosbury had difficulty competing using the dominant high jumping techniques of the period. In his sophomore year, he failed to complete jumps of 5 feet (1.5 m), the qualifying height for many high school track meets. This dominant technique, the straddle method, was a complex motion where an athlete went over the high jump bar facing down, and lifted his legs individually over the bar. Fosbury found it difficult to coordinate all the motions involved in the straddle method, and began to experiment with other ways of doing the high jump.
Fosbury later recalled, "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." At first, he tried to use a technique known as the upright scissors method. In this method, a jumper runs upright towards the bar, facing forward, and during his jump lifts his straight legs one at a time over the bar. High jump rules stipulate only that competitors may only jump off one foot at takeoff: there is no rule governing how a competitor crosses the bar, so long as he or she goes over it.
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