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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that takes a flying leap through history every day

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Speaker 1: of the week. I'm Gabe Lucier, and today we're talking

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Speaker 1: about the international debut of a game changing jumping style,

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Speaker 1: the One and only Fosbury Flop. The day was October twentieth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight. Dick Fosbury used a revolutionary high jump

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Speaker 1: technique to win a gold medal at the Mexico City

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Speaker 1: Olympic Games. The twenty one year old Oregon State University

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Speaker 1: student leapt two point twenty four meters or seven feet

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Speaker 1: four and a quarter inches over the bar, an Olympic

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Speaker 1: record at the time that already impressive feet was made

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Speaker 1: all the more notable by the way Fosbury achieved it.

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Speaker 1: He didn't clear the bar by jumping feet first or

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Speaker 1: face first like other athletes. Instead, he went over backwards,

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Speaker 1: landing on his head and shoulders. The unorthodox maneuver soon

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Speaker 1: became known as the Fosbury flop, and though it would

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Speaker 1: take a few years to catch on, it ultimately became

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Speaker 1: the standard style used by high jumpers worldwide. Prior to

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Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty eight Olympics, there were two prevailing techniques

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Speaker 1: for the high jump, both of which involved facing the bar.

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Speaker 1: The athlete would either leap over the bar using a

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Speaker 1: straddle or scissor kick, or they would roll over the

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Speaker 1: bar by jumping face first and then twisting their body

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Speaker 1: in mid air. During his high school days, Dick Fosbury

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Speaker 1: preferred the scissors technique, but he never had much luck

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Speaker 1: pulling it off. In fact, he performed oh badly at

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Speaker 1: high jump competitions that he was in danger of being

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Speaker 1: cut from his track and field team. Plenty of student

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Speaker 1: athletes would have thrown in the towel at that point

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Speaker 1: or switched to a sport that suited them better. But

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Speaker 1: it wasn't just fun in games for Fosbury. He was

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Speaker 1: going through a difficult time at home following the divorce

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Speaker 1: of his parents and the death of his younger brother.

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Speaker 1: The track team provided a sense of community and belonging

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Speaker 1: for the young athlete, so he didn't simply want to

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Speaker 1: be a part of it. He needed to be That

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Speaker 1: was a really strong drive for me, Fosbury said years later,

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Speaker 1: first of all to stop losing, and second of all,

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Speaker 1: to stay on the team. And if I was going

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Speaker 1: to be different from everybody else, so be it. That

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Speaker 1: would be the way that I play the game. The

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Speaker 1: first time Fosbury let his differences take the lead was

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Speaker 1: at a nineteen sixty three track meet in Grant's Pass, Oregon,

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Speaker 1: not far from his hometown of Medford. His biggest problem

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Speaker 1: as a jumper was that he kept knocking off the

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Speaker 1: bar with his rear end, so to account for that,

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Speaker 1: he started lifting his hips higher and leaning back farther.

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Speaker 1: Those adjustments not only allowed him to clear the bar,

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Speaker 1: they helped him jump higher than he ever had before.

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Speaker 1: Fosbury noted the progress, and over the next two years

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Speaker 1: he continued to develop his technique until finally he was

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Speaker 1: doing a full back layout over the bar. The other

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Speaker 1: high jumpers thought it looked a bit strange, and so

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Speaker 1: did their coaches, but it was hard to argue with

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Speaker 1: the results. The technique worked so well that Fosbury was

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Speaker 1: able to improve his jump by a full twelve inches,

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Speaker 1: making him the highest jumper on the whole team. Years later,

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Speaker 1: after his victory at the Olympics, Fosbury described his famous

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Speaker 1: flop in detail, including the physics that made it so effective.

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Speaker 1: I take off on my right or outside foot rather

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Speaker 1: than my left foot, he said. Then I turned my

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Speaker 1: back to the bar, arch my back over and kicked

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Speaker 1: my legs out to clear it. The advantage from a

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Speaker 1: physics standpoint is it allows the jumper to run at

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Speaker 1: the bar with more speed, and with the arch in

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Speaker 1: your back, you could actually clear the bar and keep

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Speaker 1: your center of gravity at or below the bar, making

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Speaker 1: it much more efficient. Fosbury continued to fine tune his

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Speaker 1: flop at college, and in nineteen sixty eight he used

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Speaker 1: it to win the men's high jump title at the

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Speaker 1: NCAA Track and Field Championship. Later that summer, he took

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Speaker 1: first place at the high jump semi final Olympic Trials

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Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. He had to settle for a third

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Speaker 1: place at the final trials that September, but it was

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Speaker 1: still a strong enough showing to earn him a spot

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Speaker 1: at the Mexico City Games the following month. Fosbury was

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Speaker 1: largely unknown outside of Oregon, so when the high jump

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Speaker 1: competition began, the packed stadium crowd had no idea what

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Speaker 1: was in store for them. Although a few other jumpers

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Speaker 1: had also been experimenting with a back first style, Fosbury

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Speaker 1: was the first to demonstrate the new technique on the

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Speaker 1: WA world stage. Some people gasped in shock, fearing the

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Speaker 1: athlete might break his neck. Others couldn't help but laugh,

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Speaker 1: with one journalist saying it quote looked like a guy

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Speaker 1: falling off the back of a truck once again, though

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Speaker 1: the results spoke for themselves. By the time the bar

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Speaker 1: was raised to two point eighteen meters, there were only

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Speaker 1: five athletes left in the competition, and Fosbury was one

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Speaker 1: of them. On his first attempt, he leaped backward and

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Speaker 1: twisted his six foot four frame clean over the bar

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Speaker 1: before crashing headfirst into the landing pit. Two of the

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Speaker 1: other jumpers failed to clear the bar using the standard

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Speaker 1: forward facing approach, which meant there were only three remaining

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Speaker 1: competitors at two point twenty meters. Fosbury and his fellow

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Speaker 1: USA teammate Ed Carruthers and Valentine Gabrilov of the USSR.

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Speaker 1: All three made the height on their first attempt, guaranteeing

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Speaker 1: that they'd each receive a medal. The only question now

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Speaker 1: was who would get which color. Gavrolov wound up taking

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Speaker 1: the bronze after failing three attempts to clear the bar

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Speaker 1: at two point twenty two meters. Carruthers made the height

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Speaker 1: on his second attempt, and once again, Fosbury sailed over

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Speaker 1: on his first without so much as nudging the bar. Finally,

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Speaker 1: with just the two US teammates remaining, the bar was

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Speaker 1: raised to two point twenty four meters or seven feet

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Speaker 1: four and a quarter inches. Both men struggled on their

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Speaker 1: first two attempts, knocking the bar off each time, but

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Speaker 1: then on his third and final effort, Fosbury managed to

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Speaker 1: clear it with a solid inch or more to spare.

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Speaker 1: The crowd went wild, but Fosbury contained his excitement until

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Speaker 1: after Carruthers took the bar off for a third time.

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Speaker 1: The gold medal victory helped vindicate Fosbury's signature flop, and

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Speaker 1: in the years that followed, many other athletes began trying

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Speaker 1: it for themselves. By the time of the next Summer

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Speaker 1: Games in nine teen seventy two, twenty eight of the

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Speaker 1: forty high jump competitors had switched to his back first style.

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Speaker 1: Fosbury himself failed to qualify for that year's Olympics, and

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Speaker 1: he stopped competing altogether shortly after. Instead, he finished his

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Speaker 1: engineering degree at Oregon State and later opened his own

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Speaker 1: civil engineering company in Idaho. He continued to write and

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Speaker 1: speak about his Olympic triumph, including its student workshops, where

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Speaker 1: he was careful to stress the importance of landing on

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Speaker 1: your shoulders rather than on your neck. In nineteen ninety three,

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Speaker 1: Fosbury was elected to the US Olympic Hall of Fame

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Speaker 1: in recognition of his lasting contribution to the sport of

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Speaker 1: high jumping. He passed away thirty years later, on March twelfth,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, at the age of seventy six, but

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Speaker 1: the technique he pioneered lives on. After his retirement from sports,

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Speaker 1: the flop gradually won new advocates all over the world.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the Mantre Y'all Games in nineteen seventy six

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Speaker 1: was the last time that a high jumper won an

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Speaker 1: Olympic medal using a technique that wasn't the Fosbury flop,

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Speaker 1: and while the straddle jump limped on for another decade,

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Speaker 1: it made its final appearance at the nineteen eighty eight

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Speaker 1: Olympics in Seoul. From that point on, every Olympic jumper,

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Speaker 1: whether they won a medal or not, has gone over

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Speaker 1: the bar just as Dick Fosbury did backward and head first.

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Speaker 1: As US high jump coach John Tansley once put it, quote,

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Speaker 1: few athletes in history have done their thing as uniquely

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Speaker 1: as Dick Fosbury. He literally turned his event upside down.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gay Bluesia and hopefully you now know a little

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Speaker 1: more about high jump history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: You can learn even more about history by following us

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show, and

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Speaker 1: if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to

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Speaker 1: pass them along by writing to this Day at iHeartMedia

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Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening, and I'll see you

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Speaker 1: back here again soon for another Day in History class