“A great fashion designer of modern times” – L’Express

I remember by Dick Fosbury. Sunday October 20, 1968, last day of athletics week at the Mexico Olympic Games. So much ink had been spilled, before the fortnight, about the altitude which would distort performances, favoring short and explosive events, handicapping long races. And so many strong images had come to life since that week, Tommie Smith in the 200 meters, Lee Evans in the 400, their extraordinary performances and even more their rebellious attitude on the Olympic podium which had become the epicenter of the anti-racist fight. The frenetic gestures of Bob Beamon, a puppet dismantled in the beginning of the storm propelling his lanky body to the improbable mark of 8 m 90 in length. Dick Fosbury was neither rebellious nor frenzied. But revolutionary, yes. The judges of the high jump competition were embarrassed.

For the first time in history, a major title would be awarded to an athlete crossing the bar on his back. While the oxygen-deprived marathoners were finishing their event as best they could, Fosbury had just crossed a bar at 2.24 meters, ahead of his fellow American Caruthers, second with 2.22 meters. Embarrassed, the officials went back to the rules. Hadn’t Dick taken off with both feet, which would have canceled his feat? But no, nothing in his innovative technique seemed to justify disqualification, we had to accept it, or resign ourselves to it.

After so many flamboyant images and extroverted behavior, the new alien seemed very discreet in his triumph. In subsequent interviews, Dick Fosbury always presented himself as a modest athlete. At 16, he jumped 1.77 meters, and nothing predicted a prodigious development. He simply had difficulty using the belly roll, practiced by almost all jumpers in the world, including the Soviet Valériy Brumel, world record holder since 1963 with 2.28 meters. Little by little, in his corner, Dick was looking for his style, and decided to “raise his hips”. It was very gradually that he came to jump squarely on his back, and to tame what everyone would soon call the Fosbury flop.

He was very surprised to learn that before him, in the early 1960s, a student from Montana, Bruce Quande, had tried this dorsal crossing. But Quande had quickly stopped athletics. Fosbury had joined the University of Eugene in 1966, and his progress became spectacular in 1967 (2.10 meters), then dazzling in 1968, with the 2.21 meters which allowed him to win his selection for Mexico.

Much more than a one-off innovation

We would surely never have known the Fosbury flop if the high jump landing areas had not gradually seen the sand replaced first by wood chips, then by nets filled with foam and finally by these landing mats which allowed one to indulge in the space without think about reception. It is almost surprising that this new technology did not give rise to new jumping techniques sooner. But the belly roll had a hard time. It was not until 1973 that Dwight Stones became the first world record holder in fosbury, with 2.30 meters. In 1978, Ukrainian jumper Vladimir Yatchenko again broke the world record with 2.34 meters in a belly jump.

With Dick Fosbury, however, we were witnessing much more than a one-off innovation in the history of the high jump. It was suddenly a new philosophy of the event. The scissor jump, the Californian roll then the belly roll practiced until then engaged the jumper in a face‐to‐face encounter with the bar which did not lack audacity when it was installed very high on its cleats.

I am thinking in particular of a photo of John Thomas raising his free leg with great flexibility, but still so far below the obstacle that we cannot imagine he could clear it. Afterwards, there was in the ventral roll an almost loving winding of the bar, the body lying on it. So far, impeccable aesthetics. But the rotational dodging of the second leg then took on a slightly stiff stiffness, much less pleasing to the eye.

Nothing like that with the Fosbury flop. We no longer look at the opponent’s bar before fighting them bravely. We look at it from a distance, then we run in long strides, fast enough and long enough to then create a hovering levitation, enough momentum to make the whole body parade. We no longer provoke. We erase, we despise, we abolish, without looking. The movement is magnificent. Dick Fosbury said with humor that he was not a very good jumper… Fosbury. He found that throughout his jump he kept his arms too close to his body, and that this was detrimental to his idea of ​​flight. Little by little, other jumpers, other jumpers, and then all the jumpers, all the jumpers began to practice jumping on their backs. Of Dick Fosbury, who left us very recently, I would say that he was a very great fashion designer of modern times. […]

Taken from I remember… Pérec’s stride (and other sporting madeleines), directed by Benoît Heimermann. Threshold, 226 p., €19.90.