How One Man Changed the High Jump Forever | The Olympics on the Record

The Olympic Games go to Mexico. The Olympic

high

jump

changed

forever

on October 20, 1968. The location was Mexico City. Everything was normal until a tall, skinny twenty-one-year-old civil engineering student wearing mismatched running shoes came and did this. That man's name was Dick Fosbury. Although the sight may not seem unusual to you now, it was a revolutionary move in 1968. That day in Mexico City, the Olympic Games witnessed the first-ever Fosbury

jump

, and it has been repeated many times since. The

high

jump has been part of the Olympic Games since the beginning. "Faster, higher, stronger" is the motto of the game.

Over the years, techniques have

changed

to take it up a notch. The game, which began with jumping without running, moved to a point where jumping jacks were considered the latest fad. Next came the balance jump and the reverse jump, each of which was slightly better than the last. But in Portland, Oregon, in the mid-1960s, a young Dick Fosbury was failing at the balance vault. He watched his hero, Valery Brummell, break

record

after

record

, but Fosbury broke nothing except his hand, which was broken. Someone bet him that he couldn't jump over a chair, and in reality he couldn't.

But that was before Fosbury tried something new. He combined his engineering background with what his body does naturally when he runs toward the barrier. Fosbury employed some rules of mechanics and learned that by arching the back, the jumper's center of gravity remains below the level of the hurdle, even when the body is raised above it. If the athlete achieves the perfect arc, he will have a mechanical advantage using this technique. Previously, players would jump on the foot closest to the fence and then extend their bodies in the air to first move the other leg to the other side, but Fosbury changed the way they ran and implemented the opposite technique.

Sawdust replaced sand and then cork began to be used for players to land on. Everything was ready for Fosbury to make the attempt. In Mexico City, Fosbury was not like the other players. He didn't like to exercise and he was an isolated person. He skipped the opening ceremony so he could drive to see the pyramids, watch the sunset, and sleep on a bus. His abilities were both mental and physical. Fosbury prepared for all the jumps and won the support of a crowd of 80,000, who encouraged him to jump the barrier. When reporters saw Fosbury jumping before the Games, they said he looked like a camel with two legs.

They ignored him and considered it strange, but this camel finished the first stage of the competition without lowering any barrier. Only three men stayed within eight feet of each other and all of them were sure to get at least a bronze medal. Ed Carathers of the United States and Valentin Gavrilov of the Soviet Union joined Fosbury at 2.20 meters, but Gavrilov could not clear 2.22 meters and Carathers could not cross 2.24 meters. As for Fosbury, he has come a long way as a champion. His hurdle jump of two and twenty-four meters set a new Olympic Games record and earned him a gold medal.

Fosbury never returned to the Olympics as a player after that day in Mexico City, but his name certainly did. He said that he believes many players will try to change their path next. Now the Fosbury jump is the only way to jump over obstacles.