Dick Fosbury, the man who revolutionized the high jump with his famous 'flop', dies aged 76

The American athlete gave his name to a famous backstroke high jump technique in the late 1960s.

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Published on 13/03/2023 20:29

Update on 13/03/2023 20:37

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American athlete Dick Fosbury, in Mexico City (Mexico), October 10, 1968. (EPU / AFP) — American athlete Dick Fosbury, in Mexico City (Mexico), October 10, 1968. (EPU/AFP)

Former American athlete Dick Fosbury, Olympic champion in 1968, who revolutionized the high jump with a technique that became a school and now bears his name, died on Sunday at the age of 76, his agent announced on Monday March 13. “It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that longtime friend and client Dick Fosbury passed away peacefully in his sleep early Sunday morning after a brief recurrence of lymphoma.wrote on Instagram Ray Schulte. The track and field legend is survived by his wife Robin Tomasi, son Erich Fosbury and stepdaughters Stephanie Thomas-Phipps of Hailey, Idaho, and Kristin Thompson. The family is planning a ‘celebration of life’ which will take place in the coming months.”he added.

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Dick Fosbury made track and field history with his famous “flop”. A dorsal jump technique, when all the other athletes used those of the belly roll or the scissor. It was in 1968 that the world discovered this strange bird hovering in the sky of Mexico City where the Games were held. His jump to 2.24 m, an Olympic record as a bonus, brought him gold and the posterity of a discipline of which he will forever remain the great revolutionary.

Because if a few years earlier, Dick Fosbury, born in Portland (Oregon) on March 6, 1947, described himself, aroused many criticisms, doubts, even mockery, on his way to Olympus, in an America where coaches and observers predicted a broken neck rather than sustaining a medal, his legacy remains palpable more than fifty years later. “I didn’t know anyone else in the world could use (this technique) and I never imagined that it would revolutionize the discipline”confided the one who failed to qualify for the Munich Olympics, after having had to put his sports career on hold for his studies in civil engineering.