Dick Fosbury, who changed the sport of high-jumping w/ his "Fosbury Flop" dies at 76.

I never gave much thought to high-jumping but to me this is what it looks like. Athletes hurl themselves into the air, and fly over the bar head first, back arched.

But apparently it wasn't always done that way.

"Before the Fosbury Flop was invented, athletes had a number of methods of doing the high jump and some of them are known as the scissor method where one jumps on their toes and tries to cross the bar by positioning their legs as scissors."

https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2023/03/14/before-the-fosbury-flop-the-high-jump-event-looked-kind-of-silly/

And the jumps weren't as high as they are today.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dick-Fosbury

Until Dick Fosbury came along with his now famous flop and changed the game forever.

"It was a convention-defying move, and with the world watching, Fosbury cleared 2.24 meters (7 feet, 4 1/4 inches) to win the gold and set an Olympic record. By the next Olympics, 28 of the 40 jumpers were using Fosbury's technique. The Montreal Games in 1976 marked the last Olympics in which a high jumper won a medal using a technique other than the Fosbury Flop.

“The world legend is probably used too often,” sprint great Michael Johnson tweeted. "Dick Fosbury was a true LEGEND! He changed an entire event forever with a technique that looked crazy at the time but the result made it the standard.”

https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/fosbury-flop-high-jumper-dick-fosbury-dies-76-97834177

Not just athletes, we can all learn something from him about the value of looking at old things in a new way.

“He just looked at the thing differently, and it really worked,” said Eric Hintz of the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. “And he had the guts and fortitude to stick with it in the face of criticism.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dick-fosbury-dead_n_64101b14e4b0bc5cb64c549b

RIP Mr. Fosbury.