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Olympic high jump legend Dick Fosbury has died at 76

Fosbury introduced the flop technique that's become universal among high jumpers

Photo by: W/C

On Sunday, March 12, the track and field community lost one of the most influential athletes in the history of the sport. U.S. Olympian and 1968 Olympic high jump champion Dick Fosbury died at 76 after a recurrence of lymphoma. 

His death was confirmed by his former agent Ray Schulte on Instagram.

Fosbury became a legend at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games when he unveiled his revolutionary “Fosbury Flop” to win high jump gold and clear an Olympic record height of 2.24m. 

Despite the initial skeptical reactions from the high-jumping community, the Fosbury Flop gained acceptance and began to be used by jumpers from around the world.

At the 1972 Olympics in Munich, 28 of the 40 competitors used Fosbury’s technique, and today it’s the most popular technique in modern high jumping.

Fosbury initially founded the method in high school after finding it difficult to co-ordinate all the motions involved in the straddle method, and began to experiment with the flop.

In 1981, Fosbury was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame. In pop culture, the story of the Fosbury flop has been featured in commercials and even popular music videos

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