Dick Fosbury

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 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.

High jump pioneer Dick Fosbury, who revolutionised the sport with his innovative backward style that became known as the Fosbury Flop, has died at the age ...

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. After his retirement, Fosbury had a brief career in politics. In 2008 he 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 Mexico Olympics champion changed his event forever with a back-jump that is still regarded as the most innovative achievement in sports performance ...

He changed an entire event forever with a technique that looked crazy at the time but the result made it the standard.” “When you reached the elite level in the high jump, going over the bar at those high levels, you really feel like you’re flying,” he told NYT in 2002. “If they get into that perfect arch, it’s a mechanical advantage to use that technique,” he said after his Mexico high. He was a fan of USSR’s Valery Brumel, the 1964 Tokyo Olympics high jump champion who broke the world record multiple times. The technique in an event that has been part of the modern Olympics from the beginning went from standing to scissors to straddle to the western roll. It helped that the landing area had gone from sand to sawdust to foam by then.

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,

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.

Dick Fosbury set an Olympic record as he cleared the bar in the high jump event at 7 feet, 4 1/4 inches in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.

I didn't like the fact that I couldn't see where I was going [taking off with her back to the bar] and it took a level of trust between yourself and the high jump mat to be able to jump backwards and know you're not going to get hurt because you'll land on it." He once saw a picture caption in the Medford newspaper, describing him "flopping" over the bar, like a fish flops on dry land. “In 1976, that was the last Olympics when anyone won a medal using anything but the Fosbury flop.” "First of all, stop losing, and second of all, to stay on the team. Fosbury said the situation ultimately was resolved. As he developed the technique, Fosbury said opposing coaches questioned whether it was legal. It was the start of a two-year evolution that ultimately had Fosbury doing a full back layout over the bar, while other high jumpers continued to lean forward. Fosbury grew up in Medford, and his appearance was for a book signing he was doing with Welch. "The marathon was finishing and [Kenny], after running 26 miles, was finishing his last lap," said Fosbury. But the reality of why Fosbury did what he did is far more basic. The room was filled with old high school classmates of Fosbury's and hometown admirers. He'd been on a tour, from Mexico City to his native Oregon, commemorating the day he confounded the sports world.

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.

On Sunday 12 March the world said goodbye to Dick Fosbury, the high jumper whose 'Fosbury Flop' technique changed the way athletes approached his sport ...

Vern Taylor at the 1978 World Championships in Ottowa and [Ito Midori](https://olympics.com/en/athletes/midori-ito) (1988 NHK Trophy), were the first to land Triple Axels in competition prior to Malinin’s historic Quad just last year. In fact, rather than being a well-rehearsed invention of Mullen’s, the skater had first performed the trick completely by accident. The kickflip trick is a staple of skateboarding that often separates the budding amateur from seasoned veterans. The pioneering aspect resulted from the backward entry, which created more power compared to the previous most popular vault, the Tsukahara, which required a forward entry. With the development of a new technique that came to be known as the ‘Fosbury Flop’ the American high jumper turned his sport completely on its head. The difficulty is increasing though. And it is all thanks to the innovation of Fosbury some 60 years ago. Classic, the Axel remains the oldest, most famous and arguably hardest jump in ice skating history. In homage to the legendary athlete, Olympics.com looks at the evolution of that famous jump and four other techniques that have had a game-changing impact on sport. It involved an athlete jumping face forward and twisting their body mid-air to navigate their way over the bar. He had even failed to make it onto his local athletics club's high jump team as a schoolboy athlete. [Dick Button](https://olympics.com/en/athletes/richard-button) (1948 Winter Olympics) and [Carol Heiss](https://olympics.com/en/athletes/carol-heiss) (1953) becoming the first male and female skaters to land a Double Axel in competition.