The High Jump Legend

       

     The high jump changed forever in the Olympic games of 1968 in Mexico city. It all started in the early 1960s when Dick Fosbury was still a lousy jumper. His hero Valery Brumel continued to break records while all he broke was his hand. His friend had bet that he couldn’t jump over a chair and he couldn’t. His coach tried to help him with the western roll, but with little success. His highest jump stayed at 1.63 meters, 60 centimeters off the world record at the time.

        In 1963, while striving to break his personal record, Fosbury tried something different. He lifted his hips and pushed his shoulders back, which got him a new personal high. After that, he converted from sitting on top of the bar to laying flat on his back. This way, he could soar over the bar while his center of mass stayed below the bar. The innovative technique dramatically improved his personal best by almost 15 centimeters. In a sport where every improvement was minuscule, this was a huge breakthrough.

        When Fosbury arrived in the Mexico City Olympics of 1968, he was not like any other athlete. He went to see the pyramids with some 1964 Olympic swimmers, and missed the opening ceremony due to a traffic jam on the way back. The newspapers called him a two legged camel. But it is this camel who would then go through the start of the high jump competition without touching the bar once, and win the gold medal after jumping a new Olympic record of 2.24 meters.

        Dick Fosbury wasn’t a good jumper, nor a great athlete at all. But with his dream to improve his personal record, his courage to try out new things, and his passion to apply his engineering knowledge, he became a high jump legend and revolutionized the sport forever.