His technique, honed in college competition in Oregon, involved jumping backwards and arching his back over the bar, thereby reversing and ripping up decades of high-jump orthodoxy....
It's hard to remember what everyone else was doing and thus how weird that looked to people in 1968.
Would you want to become famous like that?
In 2012, Fosbury told the Guardian he “had a horrible time dealing with all the attention” that followed his Olympic triumph. “It was too much. I was a small-town kid who did something way beyond what I had ever expected to do. I liked the attention, but I wanted it to be over at a point. It didn’t work that way.”
He also said he became “mentally exhausted” because “there was too much attention. People put me on a pedestal and kept me there. I didn’t want to be on a pedestal. I received my medal and I wanted to be back on the ground with everyone else.”
If he hadn't jumped like that, would everyone still be jumping the old way?
“A couple of people have claimed that they did, most notably the Canadian future world No1 Debbie Brill, who was developing the ‘Brill Bend’ at around the same time, and was videoed using the technique in 1966. ‘I was quite shocked when I saw Fosbury jump the first time,’ she said. ‘I thought I was the only one doing it.’”
Not just the same jump, but the same idea of doing alliteration with the name. Well, isn't that something that happens all the time, naming some move after the first person who does it and pairing it with a word that is poetically related to the name? All I can think of is the Hamill Camel, but I'm not much of a sports person, so help me out.
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The Flop was a landmark in focusing on athletic methods that work with the human body rather than adapting the human body to work with technology. This change was a slow process, as people invented sophisticated machines only 100 years prior.
Military combat uniforms became 'practical' only around WW2:
https://www.rallypoint.com/topics/uniforms
The Flop is rather frightening to execute the first couple times.
Serena slam in tennis.
It was a great innovation. So glad I saw it as it happened. (on TV, of course)
Tommy John Surgery
There's "volzing," named for pole vaulter Dick Volz. Not paired with another word, presumably because "Volzing" already sounds so similar to "vaulting."
Volz created the technique, now illegal, of steadying or even replacing the bar while still in mid-air to prevent it from falling off.
There's the Flintstone Flop, which came along three years earlier but didn't catch on.
"Someday, everything is gonna be diff’rent
When I paint my masterpiece"
Little known fact. In fact so little known I might be making it up as my source was anecdotal. Babe Didrikson wowed every one at the 1932 Olympics but was denied the high jump gold because she used "an improper technique." To wit, she essentially leaped into the air and dove over the bar.* Of course, she was more of an all around athlete than Fosbury, and perhaps more of an all around athlete than anyone.
BTW, RIP Mr. Fosbury.
*I checked with Wikipedia so it has to be true.
People forget Fosbury’s innovation in form was inconceivable without a preceding innovation in technology: The introduction of foam landing pits instead of the sparse wood shavings of the previous seventy years.
Pistol Pete (Maravich)? Don't pass, just shoot, from anywhere on the court.
How long has the subhead said, an endless succession of beans and nuts? I just noticed it.
Now the standard technique for high-jumping. But Valery Brumel, the incredible Soviet athlete, could clear the same heights as Fosbury using the old straddle technique.
There was the Berkoff Blastoff, in swimming, but I guess it was too effective, and was quickly banned.
This is the closest thing I can think of off the top of my head, although he didn't invent the pitch, commonly called an "eephus" pitch. Here's pitcher Dave LaRoche throwing the "LaLob."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdyT0LHNSfg
Humanity survives because of the quiet work of a small number of innovators. They are often quirky loners. Even work in sports and entertainment matters, because it shows potential in other more useful areas.
@Bob Boyd, at least a couple days -- I noticed that over the weekend.
Me! I was pretty good at the High Jump in high school, giving me vibrant new hope that I could flop my way to success!
Dude was a true innovator and I’m glad his name stuck the landing.
Thomas Flair
Way, way back in the 6th grade we all tried the "high" jump (it wasn't very high...). We straddled the bar and landed in a sand pit. While no athlete I did better than many so the PE teacher had me and a few more keep at it. Worst headache of my life.
The flop would have been impossible into that sand...
Cliff Young Shuffle or Young Shuffle, though not a poetic pairing…
https://wildclickgo.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/the-legend-of-the-young-shuffle/
I've heard tell that the physics of doing a basketball free throw are much more advantageous when one does a 2-handed underhand 'granny throw' and I've always wondered when some enterprising soul will start doing that in the NBA.
The long jump flip technique by Tuariki Delamere is more entertaining and uses the jumper's energy more efficiently than a regular long jump. Of course the Karen's of the day promptly banned it.
No evidence that it was given a clever name. It seems to be just a flip.
Last player I know of to use the underhand "Granny throw" was Rick Barry. His percentage was .880 in the ABA and 90% in the NBA. Wilt Chamberlain was as famously inept as Barry was ept and he tried that technique among many others to little success. I've often thought bad free throwers don't resort to this technique because it is perceived as unmanly. How could anything else described as a "granny throw" be conceived. We don't even see young women using this technique.
I think it's effective because the ball arrives with an arc but it is nearer the top of it's trajectory and so is falling more gently and thus will ricochet less. Physicists with an interest in basketball should feel free to weigh in.
Before the Flop, there was the Western Roll and the Eastern Straddle. And yes, the foam landing pits were absolutely necessary for the flop, and even more so for the pole vault.
Seems like many jumps in figure skating and movements in gymnastics are named after the individuals that first complete them successfully in competition.
The Icky Shuffle
it was ergonomically aerodynamic >>> marvelous scientific discovery for human propulsion
Blogger Randomizer said...
The long jump flip technique by Tuariki Delamere is more entertaining and uses the jumper's energy more efficiently than a regular long jump. Of course the Karen's of the day promptly banned it.
Blogger Steven Wilson said...
Physicists with an interest in basketball should feel free to weigh in.
Assistant Village Idiot said...
And yes, the foam landing pits were absolutely necessary for the flop, and even more so for the pole vault.
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the long jumper lands in sand after flip
so why not the flopper can do also?
now that I have thought about it
??it is high point of the arc/parabola in one vs length 'base' for other.???
both Fosbury and Valery Brumel, mentioned in this chinese drama
many chinese dramas are historical educational indeed.
He was very innovative...a trailblazer.
Will there be another like him?
Don't know.
It would be a high bar to clear...
'Of course, she was more of an all around athlete than Fosbury, and perhaps more of an all around athlete than anyone.'
Jim Thorpe begs to differ...
The fact that Dick Fosbury grew up in Jackson county, Oregon, back when its economy was logging, pears and tourists is not emphasized enough in evaluating his innovation. "Sometimes a Great Notion", Ken Kesey's great American novel, also set in rural Oregon of that era, is mandatory reading if you want to understand the "never give an inch" ethos of that time and place. If no one can ever tell you what you can or can't do (I'm all too familiar with the attitude after practicing law in Drain, Oregon for 30 years), you're much more likely to be an innovator.
@Madiaon Man, @Bob Boyd it come from here
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