Sports: Dick Fosbury, the man who revolutionized the high jump has died

Sometimes it is by turning our backs on him that we mark history. On October 20, 1968, during the high jump final at the Olympic Games in Mexico City (Mexico), the stadium witnessed a revolution. The winner that day was an American named Richard Fosbury, nicknamed Dick. He had then just crossed 2.24 meters on his back, using a technique he had been honing over several years, where his competitors passed the bar in scissors or wrapped around it.

A technique adopted all over the world

Almost half a century later, during the Olympic Games in London (UK) in 2012, Dick Fosbury returned to his invention of this technique called the “Fosbury Flop”: “It was after losing many times, but when I discovered this new technique on my back, I could jump higher and be a better competitor.“ Since then this technique has become a school being adopted by all jumpers in the world. If its inventor died at the age of 76 on Monday 13 March, his name remains etched in history.