Richard Fosbury
- Dick Fosbury & the Fosbury Flop
- Fosbury Pioneers the Flop
- How One Man Changed the High Jump Forever
- John Radetich Sets Indoor World Record Using Flop
- Flop Made Simple
- High Jump Explained (Biometrics)
- Aspects of the High Jump (Flop)
- Proper Take-off Technique
- Physics of High Jump
- High Jump Form Slow Motion
- High Jump Drills: The Best of British Track and Field
- Raising the Bar - Perfect High Jump Technique
- Effective Practice Drills for High Jump (Nathan Leeper)
- Exceptional Take Off Drills to Increase Your Jump
- Teaching Take-off (excerpt from 20 Drills & Techniques)
- Becoming a Champion High Jumper - Beyond the Basics
- Russian Training Film
- Mathematical Analysis of the Flop
- Sports Science High Jump
- Using Physics for the Flop
- Perfecting Technique
- Best of Ivan Ukhov
- Mutaz Barshim Learning as Teenager
- History of High Jump in 90 Seconds
- 6 Degrees of Jumping
The “flop" technique is now the most widely used HJ technique by current elite jumpers. Its creation is properly credited to Dick Fosbury (USA) who modified a scissors bar clearance to one where he eventually went over back first—increasingly arching his back as he developed it. He modified and improved the “backwards” technique into what we now call the Fosbury flop or just “the Flop.”
He competed in Mexico’s 1968 Olympic Games and won the gold medal with a leap of 7’4 1/4” (2.24 M). At the time, he was the only person competing at a high level who used the technique, but subsequently it has become the method of choice for Olympic champion jumpers since 1976.
Also, the current world indoor and outdoor records are held by Javier Sotomayeer, 7’ 11 1/2” (2.43 M indoor), 8’ 1/2” (2.45 M outdoor), who used the Flop technique; the last world record holder who used the dive-straddle technique was Vladimir Yashchenko of the Ukraine, who cleared 7’ 8 1/2” (2.35 M).
Exemplars
- Javier Sotomayor sets WR
- Top 5 Olympic High Jumps of All Time
- Ten Best High Jumpers of All Time (all but one flop)
- Dusty Jonas Clears 7’ 8 3/4” (~2.36M) (shot this video myself) at Big 12 Meet in Boulder, CO
- High Jump: A Journey from 2.30 M to 2:45 M (part 1 of 2)
- High Jump: A Journey from 2:30 M to 2:45 M (part 2 of 2)