Athletics legend Dick Fosbury, who revolutionized high jumping with his signature “Fosbury flop,” has died, his agent confirmed on Monday. He was 76.
Fosbury’s agent Ray Schulte said in a statement that the 1968 Olympics gold medalist had died peacefully in his sleep early on Sunday from lymphoma.
“Dick will be greatly missed by friends and fans from around the world. A true legend, and friend of all,” he said.
Photo: AP
Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1947, Fosbury was to become one of the most influential athletes in history for developing the innovative high-jumping technique which upended his sport in the 1960s.
Prior to Fosbury’s emergence, high jumpers typically attempted to clear the bar using the “straddle technique” in which they would take off face forward while attempting to twist their body mid-leap over the bar.
However, Fosbury turned conventional wisdom on its head with his new approach which would become immortalized as the “Fosbury Flop” and remains to this day the standard technique used by elite high jumpers.
Instead of tackling the bar head on, the rangy Fosbury would arc toward the bar on his run-up before taking off backward and “flopping” over the bar.
“Few athletes in history have done their thing as uniquely as Dick Fosbury,” former US high jump coach John Tansley wrote in 1980. “He literally turned his event upside down.”
US great Michael Johnson led the tributes to Fosbury on Monday.
“The world legend is probably used too often,” Johnson wrote on Twitter. “Dick Fosbury was a true LEGEND! He changed an entire event forever with a technique that looked crazy at the time but the result made it the standard.”
Fosbury first began experimenting with new ways of high jumping while still in school, hitting upon his new technique in 1963 during a competition in which he jumped a personal best of 1.65m using an old technique.
“Then they raised the bar and I knew I had to try something different to get over it,” Fosbury told Athletics Weekly in 2011. “I knew I had to lift my hips up and to do that I needed to get my shoulders back out of the way, and I cleared the bar at the next height, eventually jumping 1.77m, so I improved by 15cm that day.”
It was not until 1968 that Fosbury’s new approach gained global attention. Victory at the US college championships was followed by a win at the US Olympic trials in Los Angeles.
At the Mexico City Olympics, Fosbury won the gold medal after clearing a height of 2.24m with his third jump — a new Olympic and US record — to pip teammate Ed Caruthers, with the Soviet Union’s Valentin Gavrilov taking bronze.
Fosbury’s performances at the Olympics electrified the stadium, with Mexican fans delighted by the gangly American college student’s bold approach.
Fosbury would say later that he never saw himself as a revolutionary and did not anticipate that his style would become the standard technique for high jumping.
“I have had the blessing and good fortune to have made a contribution to the sport, but I did not set out to do this,” he told Athletics Weekly. “I was not trying to change the event. I knew that my technique was my path to success and I had this technique which was mine — mine alone.”
Fosbury was the only competitor using the “Fosbury Flop” in the 1968 Olympics. By the the 1972 Munich Games, 28 of 40 competitors in the discipline had adopted his style.
“I thought that after I won the gold, one or two jumpers would start using it, but I never really contemplated that it would become the universal technique,” Fosbury said in 2012. “Yet, it only took a generation.”
Four-time NBA all-star DeMarcus Cousins arrived in Taiwan with his family early yesterday to finish his renewed contract with the Taiwan Beer Leopards in the T1 League. Cousins initially played a four-game contract with the Leopards in January. On March 18, the Taoyuan-based team announced that Cousins had renewed his contract. “Hi what’s up Leopard fans, I’m back. I’m excited to be back and can’t wait to join the team,” Cousins said in a video posted on the Leopard’s Facebook page. “Most of all, can’t wait to see you guys, the fans, next weekend. So make sure you come out and support the Beer
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was