Olympic champion high jump legend Dick Fosbury has passed away. He was 78 years old and was undergoing treatment for cancer. He is the star who brought revolution by introducing ‘Fosbury Flap’ with his own flexibility in the high jump, which used to cross the foot first. It was in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics that a head-first jump over the bar instead of feet was introduced. After that it became known as ‘Fosbury Flap’. Dick Fosbury revolutionized athletics and filled the world stage with his new jump.
Jumps called straddle and scissor jump were used by the stars in high jump. Fosbury won applause by introducing a new method at the Olympics with the introduction of ‘form matting’ in the falling part to completely avoid injury to the players. The star who jumped 2.24 on the world stage in 1968 changed the shape of high jump. The Olympic venue watched with wonder as he successfully crossed the bar head-first and shoulder-back and finished with his feet at the end. Fosbury later said that the people who jumped in this way noticed him at first, and the bystanders gathered more people. When he finally leapt to the gold after passing everyone else in the competition, it became not only an American record, but Olympic history as well. Fosbury later said that local man Kenny Moore, who was running a marathon nearby, also celebrated his victory during the race.
After the jump was noticed, the high jump became the same in the global arenas. In 2018, the golden celebration of Fosbury Flap was widely held all over the world.
Fosbury, who started testing the new jump in 1963, presented this method on the world stage for the first time in the Olympics five years later. Initially, there were many who were skeptical about this, but gradually the world became Fosbury’s fans.
Until then, not a single person had used this jump in the Olympics, but when it came to the Munich Olympics in 1972, 28 out of 40 people took it. In the 1976 Olympics, the old fashioned way, a man wins the Olympic high jump gold. All subsequent winners jumped the Fosbury Flip.
“Dick Fosbury has always been true to the Olympic values. Carried out many responsibilities of the Olympic Movement. ‘World Olympians’ became the president. “He will be remembered as a great Olympic champion,” International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bah said.
