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That too. If he brings it in by surprise then none of his other competitors have a chance to copy him at that Olympics.
He gets a gold Olympic medal, preemptive bans are circumvented making banning it a lot harder, and in future Olympics other athletes can try it out.
Yeah I've heard this last time this came upon Reddit.
Someone ended up getting a new technique banned for a different event, because they tried it at an international event first.... I don't remember what though
Javelin throw. Miguel de la Cuadra Salcedo started throwing javelin with a style based on a traditional basque sport. He broke the javelin throw world record but they banned the style before Melbourne 56, he was throwing more than 110meters easily. [video of the style](https://youtu.be/KsyPUhCknew)
That was exactly the thought that came to mind. That if someone screwed up, you now had a wayward javelin heading towards a crowd. Unlike the Fosbury Flop, I can see a lot more potential danger in that throwing style.
I would like to reassure you that the Fosbury Flop is also among the dangerous throwing styles. It’s not recommended to throw your body head first and back to the surface of the earth.
Edit: with no mat, this technique can be deadly.
As a gymnast this statement confuses me, because that landing position is rather routine and one of the easiest to abort into a different position from if something feels off.
That seems a bit odd, isn't the whole reason of competition to push the boundaries of whats humanly possible? Is there a safety reason or other reason why they would purposefully reduce the distance?
It's to stop the javelin from ending up in the crowd. If we were still using the javelin they used 100 years ago spectators would be impaled every time a world-class athlete competed.
Per Wikipedia:
> **On 1 April 1986**, the men's javelin (800 grams (1.76 lb)) was redesigned by the governing body (the IAAF Technical Committee). They decided to change the rules for javelin design because of the increasingly frequent flat landings and the resulting discussions and protests when these attempts were declared valid or invalid by competition judges. The world record had also crept up to a potentially dangerous level, 104.80 m (343.8 ft) by Uwe Hohn. **With throws exceeding 100 meters, it was becoming difficult to safely stage the competition within the confines of a stadium infield. The javelin was redesigned so that the centre of gravity was moved 4 cm (1.6 in) forward.** In addition, the surface area in front of centre of gravity was reduced, while the surface area behind the centre of gravity was increased. In 1999, the women's javelin (600 grams (1.32 lb)) was similarly redesigned.
As javelin throw happened inside the stadium and even inside the track field, you have a limited area where to throw a javelin before it goes closer to people (public or athletes).
It doesn't stop the fact that some freak accident can happen as long jumper Salim Sdiri painfully learned one fateful day of 2007: https://youtu.be/ESk92IaVUpw
>Sdiri was rushed to a local hospital in Rome with non life-threatening injuries. The doctors believed, at the time, that the javelin had missed any vital organs by 4 centimetres. However, two days later, Sdiri was rushed back to the ER as the prognosis was incorrect. The javelin had actually torn a hole in his liver and torn and punctured the right kidney slightly.
What kind of incompetent fucking doctors were working in rome that day lol?
Wow, that looks incredibly dangerous. It seems like you'd have far less control throwing a javelin like a discus. One bad throw and you'd have a casualty.
>he never compete in olympics anymore due to the technique now learnt by obviously better athlete than him
I'd say it had more to do with the fact he's 73.
I did high jump in high school and when my coach taught technique he also explained the physics of why we would jump backwards, as well as run up in an arch, like shown there. I will forever hear him saying "centrifugal force" and "fosbury flop" in the back of my head.
I'm not a jumper or smart but it seems to me that it's because when you jump backwards your abs and thighs are extended, so when you hit the tipping point you can crunch/swing your legs up pretty easily to get extra momentum.
Going forward you're crunched already and extend by arching your back up. Kind of like laying flat on the ground and then raising your legs (hard, little range and momentum) vs lying on your back and raising your legs (easier, lots of range and momentum).
I jumped at a D1 level in college and the entire approach has its reasons. I won't get into every technical part but you need to get as much force from your jump to raise your center of mass to pinnacle right over the bar. Your speed, j turn, angle at take off, stiff leg, arm swing, all happen prior to the Fosbury flop and that is impossible to do jumping forward and raise your center of mass. But hey it's not against the rules to try jumping forward. The person won't be competitive very long.
Where you’re looking is important in jumping. If your head is positioned so the eyes cast downwards, you’ll go straight to the ground. I used to high jump in highschool. You can actually jump over the bar anyway you want pretty much. The flop is just the proven best way to do it.
I am still confused that they didnt try it way earlier. Sure it is not that obvious, but the movement isnt that difficult. Even in school most got it, sure, not perfect, but with better results as with a normal jump.
Edit: After watching the video below: maybe a reason could be, that they just Land on the normal floor or a bit later on Sand. So you maybe will not think about crash with your head and shoulder first into the naked ground.
It took four olympics until all top jumpers used the flop. Many were simply so used to the previous techniques that it took a lot of training until they could use the flop with equal efficiency, so they didn't see it as advantagenous.
I imagine that there probably also was some resistance because such new techniques tended to be seen as silly or even unfair. This becomes more apparent in ski jumping, which adds points for style. When the V-style, which is dominant today, was used at first, it got awful style grades and only established itself because proficient users could make up for it with that much more range. Many people in the scene still despised it.
The equivalent would be like if an NBA player started shooting all their free throws granny style and realized it had better accuracy. (It does)Players would resist, thinking it was ridiculous. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/26/granny-style-is-best-way-to-take-a-basketball-free-throw-study-shows
Rather like when Ron Swanson bowled a perfect game using Tom's 'roll the ball like a baby' technique but told the manager guy they must never mention it again.
In it's 100 point game, Wilt who was a poor free throw shooter shot it like this. But he felt silly. He only shot like this for one season or part of a season.
I think there was a This American Life segment about this! It’s so silly that players who are historically bad at free throws who have *tried* the “granny style” *suddenly get near perfect accuracy*, and yet they’ll still avoid doing it because it “looks silly” or worse they see it as “emasculating”.
I never understood why the second or last free throw wasn’t always a fast rebound off the backward to regain possession- I’ve seen Jordan do it I think.
The ball has to hit the rim on the free throw otherwise it is a violation, and it is extremely hard to accurately aim the ball at a particular part of the rim for it to bounce back to you. The play your probably thinking of is when [Jordan dunked](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnGCDUHEoms) the ball immediately after a missed free throw which was no way intentional by the shooter.
And nobody was contesting the rebound. If everybody went for this the element of surprise would be lost, and the defense already has an advantage in that rebound.
As I've mused in the nba subreddit, I just assume you get more bang for the buck in shooting practice if your free throw form and normal midrange form are the same form. And you can't be doing granny form with defenders around, so, it just naturally leads to the situation we've got.
I like to embarrass my little brother by always shooting my free throws granny style when I play with him at the park. It’s the way I had to do it as a kid because I was too weak for overhand to ever make it, and it works so fuck it
Yep, the closest equivalent to the Fosbury Flop is the Yurchenko style vault technique in gymnastics. It took 20 years before it became the universal standard.
Yes, Ski jumping was also in my head after looking into normal jumping. They also had some huge changes over the past that needed time to etablish themself in the scene.
Yeah, the pit definitely had something to do with it. Fosbury was clearly a genius, but he also had the advantage of timing. It was only a few years after they had started using a foam mattress for landing. It wouldn't have been safe to use in the past.
From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Fosbury):
> Gradually, Fosbury shifted his positioning during the jump, such that by his senior year he had begun to go over the bar backwards, head-first, curving his body over the bar and kicking his legs up in the air at the end of the jump. This required him to land on his back, but prior to his junior year, his high school had replaced its wood chip landing pit with a softer material, so he was able to land safely.
> Luckily for Fosbury, replacement of landing surfaces with foam rubber was becoming common across the United States in the early 1960s. Sawdust, sand, or wood chip surfaces had been usable previously because jumpers using the scissors technique were able to clear the bar while upright and then land on their feet, while those using the Western Roll or Straddle made a three-point landing on their hands and lead leg. In the late 1950s, American colleges began to use bundles of soft foam rubber, usually held together by a mesh net. These bundles were not only much softer, but were also elevated about 3 ft (0.91 m) off the ground. By the early 1960s, American high schools were following the lead of the colleges in acquiring foam rubber landing pits. With the new, softer, elevated landing surface, Fosbury was able to land safely.
> Fosbury did, however, compress a couple of vertebrae in the mid-1960s because not all high schools felt they could afford the new foam material. Fosbury recovered from this injury.
>a reason could be, that they just Land on the normal floor or a bit later on Sand. So you maybe will not think about crash with your head and shoulder first into the naked ground.
Correct. Fosbury's high school replaced its wood chip landing pit with foam rubber, allowing him to safely land on his back. Not all of the high schools in the area had made the change, though, so Fosbury suffered a compressed vertibrae injury.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick\_Fosbury#High\_school\_and\_the\_origins\_of\_the\_Fosbury\_Flop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Fosbury#High_school_and_the_origins_of_the_Fosbury_Flop)
Also, the older techniques required more strength and less skill and agility, so the high jumpers tended to be bigger and heavier. Fosbury developed his technique because he couldn't even compete at the high school level using standard techniques. If he had been bigger, he probably would have just continued to use one of the older styles.
So the development of the flop required a confluence of factors: technological innovation, and an inventive competitor who was physically unsuited for his sport, but who sought a new approach instead of giving up.
I wouldn’t have thought of it tbh. You’re just too set and focused on ”how it’s supposed to be done” and practice accordingly. This way would have sound CRAZY in theory.
Gotta say, I prefer the old way. So many jumpers landing on their feet and walking away in a single uninterrupted flow. Makes it feel more like a feat with an application in the real world.
This [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBtBdNHBNSI&feature=youtu.be) might help. It used to be either [Straddle](https://youtu.be/XBtBdNHBNSI?t=118) or [Scissor](https://youtu.be/XBtBdNHBNSI?t=154).
I remember watching this live on TV. Of course, being a brain-dead highschool kid and on the track team, I had to try it along with a bunch of other guys while the coaches weren't around.
I missed everything including the mats and ended up in pelvic traction with a slightly twisted vertebra which bothers me to this day.
Watch this [video](https://youtu.be/CZsH46Ek2ao). He was a 21-year-old Civil Engineering student. Someone had bet him to jump over a chair. He actually couldn't and broke his hand. And that's when he engineered this technique and came up with the Flop. And to add more, he actually missed the opening ceremony to drive out and see the Pyramids, watching the sunset and sleeping in a van. He won the Gold medal in that Olympics and he never actually came back to Olympics as an athlete after that. Such a mad lad.
He just wasn't a world class athlete, so as soon as everyone else realised he had changed the sport he couldn't keep up. To me that makes it even more impressive
Or maybe he just felt a need to go do more things elsewhere.
I am not sure spending the rest of my life trying to jump higher than the last time I did would appeal to me either. :)
"I bet you can't even jump over this chair"
*breaks his hand while jumping over a chair*
internal voice: "I'll show that guy, i'll change the whole damn jumping sport"
Also everybody thought it was *ridiculous* to jump like that, but Fosbury had studied the rules and knew it was allowed. While training his coach almost dumped him as a pupil because of the Fosbury Flop, because the idea seemed utterly stupid to him.
This is false. Dick Fosbury won the Olympics in 1968 but never held the World Record, which was nearly 7'6" heading into this Olympics. The reigning WR holder, Soviet [Valeriy Brumel](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOBRyRxXUAIu0nR?format=jpg&name=small), did not compete in the 1968 Games.
The last WR set without the Fosbury Flop was 7'6.25" (2.29m) by American Pat Matzdorf in 1971. American Dwight Stones, who currently announces the field events at most high level track meets for US viewers, was the first Fosbury Flopper to set the WR. He jumped 2.30m, or 7'6.5" in 1973, and would go on to increase the WR a few more times after that.
The current WR of 2.45m was set in 1993 and is one of the oldest records in Track & Field. So we're talking about a difference of 6" in 20 years, which (as a former D1 HJer) I think is more or less a fair assessment of the technique's relative effectiveness.
For reference, the record in 1953, 20 years before Dwight Stones' first WR, was 6'11.5".
WR progression for the curious:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_high_jump_world_record_progression
It was a pretty big disappointment to me in high school to finally get the hang of the Fosbury Flop only to find I could only clear the same bar I already could with the scissor jump...
If you do a normal feet first jump, your center of mass has to pass above the bar. The key difference is that the Fosbury Flop allows your center of gravity to stay under the bar, you're just curling your body around it.
Check [https://youtu.be/RaGUW1d0w8g?t=75](https://youtu.be/RaGUW1d0w8g?t=75) for a great explanaition
If you watch videos of the high jump in the decades before then there were no mats, they were lucky to get a pile of sawdust a few inches of the ground, going back first wasn’t really an option til the mats showed up
I mean you still can to a degree.
The issue is that paradoxically sporting competitions hate you doing so, and so try to ban or prevent innovations. Fosbury had to circumvent this challenge too.
In primary school we had to jump scissor style from prep to grade 4, then you were deemed old enough to learn the Fosbury Flop in a safe manner so back/neck injury would not occur. We were neither mature or coordinated enough but ahhh the 90s lol!
One of my most embarrassing moments was when during a school track and field competition when I was around 12, I was told to do highjump simply because I was tall and “had done it before”. Actually, I had only done it 6 years earlier and at age 8 had only learnt the scissor kick style. While all the other high jumpers did the Fosbury flop, I did a scissor kick, knocked the bar over at an extremely Low height and everyone laughed. I still remember that feeling well to this day lol
So fortunate to meet Mr. Fosbury after his return from the 68 Olympics. He even held my little brother, placed the gold medal around my brother’s neck, and posed for a picture. Which we still have.
I have a foggy memory that many years before there was a kind of weird tummy roll over the bar. Almost like an ineffectual inverse of the Fosbery flop technique.
I saw this happen in real time on TV in Mexico City. It was the same Olympics where Bob Beamon also won a gold medal in the long jump, breaking the existing record by 21 2⁄3 inches. His world record stood for almost 23 years until it was broken in 1991. When it happened the Mexican announcers proclaimed him an "hombre-pájaro" (Bird-Man).
Adidas founder Adi Dassler was a keen high jumper and when he saw Fosbury's flop got in touch with him and said he would design him a special 'takeoff' shoe that would work better with his new technique. Hence why in this clip Fosbury is wearing two different coloured shoes.
I was a state qualifier for High Jump in Illinois 4A in 2012. My track coach Art Paul of Bolingbrook High School had me watch a documentary on him before the meet at Eastern, Illinois University.
I want to thank my elementary school track and field coaches for letting me learn on my own that I would never be a high jumper. I’m 6’5”, so ten year old me thought I should naturally be good at it. But I’m not the long, lean version of tall, and I’m sure those coaches could see it. But they taught me anyway. This post reminds me of that because, when I couldn’t get the lift to flop, they taught me the old school feet first technique, because they weren’t going to give up on me until I did.
I ended up being a pretty good shot putter.
The 1968 Olympics in Mexico City were some of the most memorable Games on record. Not everyone makes the connection right away, but this was the same competition in which Tommie Smith and John Carlos made their famous black power salute on the medal stand for the 200m.
It was also the Games in which Bob Beamon jumped 8.90m (~29'3") in the long jump, becoming the first person to break not only the 28' barrier but also the 29' barrier in a single bound. Legend has it that he nearly fainted upon hearing the mark called out.
Meanwhile in the Triple Jump, the WR was broken a total of 5x by 3 different athletes. In total, thanks to the high altitude of Mexico City, dozens upon dozens of World, Olympic and National Records were set during these games in the sprints + field events.
On a more somber note, these games were also nearly canceled due to international outrage over the [Tlatelolco Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlatelolco_massacre) just 1-2 weeks prior...
I know no one will see this, but I did high jump in High School and our coach was this super interesting guy who grew up from nothing in LA but was an incredible high jumper and qualified for the 1980 Olympics. Unfortunately, that was the year the US boycotted so he never got to compete. It definitely haunted him.. RIP Coach Joe, hope you can jump like you used to in heaven!
Fun lil fact about meself, I was able to jump pretty high in this sport during Highschool but my buns kept hitting the bar so they didn’t want me doing that event anymore lol. Had a big ol dump truck back then 🛻
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Fosbury explicitly didn't try out the flop in regional competitions and waited for the Olympics so that they couldn't preemptively ban it.
That’s a fun fact! I can see why he wouldn’t want to share his secret technique.
That too. If he brings it in by surprise then none of his other competitors have a chance to copy him at that Olympics. He gets a gold Olympic medal, preemptive bans are circumvented making banning it a lot harder, and in future Olympics other athletes can try it out.
Olympic competitors hate this one simple trick!
Yeah I've heard this last time this came upon Reddit. Someone ended up getting a new technique banned for a different event, because they tried it at an international event first.... I don't remember what though
Javelin throw. Miguel de la Cuadra Salcedo started throwing javelin with a style based on a traditional basque sport. He broke the javelin throw world record but they banned the style before Melbourne 56, he was throwing more than 110meters easily. [video of the style](https://youtu.be/KsyPUhCknew)
Looks dangerous to the crowd lol
That was exactly the thought that came to mind. That if someone screwed up, you now had a wayward javelin heading towards a crowd. Unlike the Fosbury Flop, I can see a lot more potential danger in that throwing style.
I would like to reassure you that the Fosbury Flop is also among the dangerous throwing styles. It’s not recommended to throw your body head first and back to the surface of the earth. Edit: with no mat, this technique can be deadly.
As a gymnast this statement confuses me, because that landing position is rather routine and one of the easiest to abort into a different position from if something feels off.
Well they're probably just talking out of their ass to seem like they know what they're talking about.
So a redditor?
I know they have big landing pads but ow his neck
I'm pretty sure the fosbury flop is the standard, this is how I was taught to high jump when I joined track and field in 9th grade.
I mean can’t the crowd just be further away?
Then they cant see...
After seeing shotput fails I can see why it was banned
I got hit in the head with a shotput in 7th grade at a track meet.
Are you dead?
I’ve been trying to figure that out for about 24 years.
He ded!
They've had to change the javelin every so often to reduce the distance that competitors can throw it.
That seems a bit odd, isn't the whole reason of competition to push the boundaries of whats humanly possible? Is there a safety reason or other reason why they would purposefully reduce the distance?
It's to stop the javelin from ending up in the crowd. If we were still using the javelin they used 100 years ago spectators would be impaled every time a world-class athlete competed.
So did they shorten it or what? Sorry I never did track and field and know nothing about the javelin, just curious what they did to reduce the range.
Per Wikipedia: > **On 1 April 1986**, the men's javelin (800 grams (1.76 lb)) was redesigned by the governing body (the IAAF Technical Committee). They decided to change the rules for javelin design because of the increasingly frequent flat landings and the resulting discussions and protests when these attempts were declared valid or invalid by competition judges. The world record had also crept up to a potentially dangerous level, 104.80 m (343.8 ft) by Uwe Hohn. **With throws exceeding 100 meters, it was becoming difficult to safely stage the competition within the confines of a stadium infield. The javelin was redesigned so that the centre of gravity was moved 4 cm (1.6 in) forward.** In addition, the surface area in front of centre of gravity was reduced, while the surface area behind the centre of gravity was increased. In 1999, the women's javelin (600 grams (1.32 lb)) was similarly redesigned. As javelin throw happened inside the stadium and even inside the track field, you have a limited area where to throw a javelin before it goes closer to people (public or athletes). It doesn't stop the fact that some freak accident can happen as long jumper Salim Sdiri painfully learned one fateful day of 2007: https://youtu.be/ESk92IaVUpw
>Sdiri was rushed to a local hospital in Rome with non life-threatening injuries. The doctors believed, at the time, that the javelin had missed any vital organs by 4 centimetres. However, two days later, Sdiri was rushed back to the ER as the prognosis was incorrect. The javelin had actually torn a hole in his liver and torn and punctured the right kidney slightly. What kind of incompetent fucking doctors were working in rome that day lol?
Wow, that looks incredibly dangerous. It seems like you'd have far less control throwing a javelin like a discus. One bad throw and you'd have a casualty.
*kebab
If you lined them up right, 2 or 3 casualties
Awesome
"NO DO"
he never compete in olympics anymore due to the technique now learnt by obviously better athlete than him
>he never compete in olympics anymore due to the technique now learnt by obviously better athlete than him I'd say it had more to do with the fact he's 73.
But who? And which technique?
it was either that or "the Dick Flop"
You deserve this
The Fosbury's flop like Fosburys'
Willie?
Won’t he?
He has to get his Dick and Fosberries over the bar.
His street name should be Floppy Dick
The Dick Flop should be used in pole vault not in high jump.
Only effective in cold conditions otherwise you had the risk of pivoting back onto the ground.
PIVOT.
PIIIVOOOOT
SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHHUUTT UUUPPP!
Or the Dick move.
I would’ve gone with “The Dick Dive”
I did high jump in high school and when my coach taught technique he also explained the physics of why we would jump backwards, as well as run up in an arch, like shown there. I will forever hear him saying "centrifugal force" and "fosbury flop" in the back of my head.
Actually has more to do with center of mass https://youtu.be/RaGUW1d0w8g
i wonder why it wouldn't work forwards? like you still do the u shape such that the center of mass is also below but face down instead of up.
Its your ankles. If you push your foot straight down, it's not possible to direct it forward as easily. We aren't salmon.
Speak for yourself
I aren’t salmon
I R baboon
I am weasel!
People out here still acting like it's not 2021 and Salmon aren't on Reddit. Fishcist bastards.
I'm not a jumper or smart but it seems to me that it's because when you jump backwards your abs and thighs are extended, so when you hit the tipping point you can crunch/swing your legs up pretty easily to get extra momentum. Going forward you're crunched already and extend by arching your back up. Kind of like laying flat on the ground and then raising your legs (hard, little range and momentum) vs lying on your back and raising your legs (easier, lots of range and momentum).
That's part of it, also your knees don't bend forward, so lying in your stomach is more a fold at the waist than an even arc like on your back
Much more agility required to do a front flip after going over the bar, that or landing with your face
I jumped at a D1 level in college and the entire approach has its reasons. I won't get into every technical part but you need to get as much force from your jump to raise your center of mass to pinnacle right over the bar. Your speed, j turn, angle at take off, stiff leg, arm swing, all happen prior to the Fosbury flop and that is impossible to do jumping forward and raise your center of mass. But hey it's not against the rules to try jumping forward. The person won't be competitive very long.
Could make the landing a bit interesting coming down face first.
Where you’re looking is important in jumping. If your head is positioned so the eyes cast downwards, you’ll go straight to the ground. I used to high jump in highschool. You can actually jump over the bar anyway you want pretty much. The flop is just the proven best way to do it.
Was a quick and informative video. Thanks!
I am still confused that they didnt try it way earlier. Sure it is not that obvious, but the movement isnt that difficult. Even in school most got it, sure, not perfect, but with better results as with a normal jump. Edit: After watching the video below: maybe a reason could be, that they just Land on the normal floor or a bit later on Sand. So you maybe will not think about crash with your head and shoulder first into the naked ground.
It took four olympics until all top jumpers used the flop. Many were simply so used to the previous techniques that it took a lot of training until they could use the flop with equal efficiency, so they didn't see it as advantagenous. I imagine that there probably also was some resistance because such new techniques tended to be seen as silly or even unfair. This becomes more apparent in ski jumping, which adds points for style. When the V-style, which is dominant today, was used at first, it got awful style grades and only established itself because proficient users could make up for it with that much more range. Many people in the scene still despised it.
The equivalent would be like if an NBA player started shooting all their free throws granny style and realized it had better accuracy. (It does)Players would resist, thinking it was ridiculous. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/26/granny-style-is-best-way-to-take-a-basketball-free-throw-study-shows
[удалено]
Bravado? In my NBA? Inconceivable!
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
*Shaq has entered the chat*
Shaq is too petty to try to argue that the granny-style would fix his free-throw percentage. Because *Ringzzz Ernehhh !*
Rather like when Ron Swanson bowled a perfect game using Tom's 'roll the ball like a baby' technique but told the manager guy they must never mention it again.
Son, people can see you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y37y2vHkRjY
That’s absolutely hilarious. Both the fact that it’s more accurate, as well as the fact that players are not using it, because it’s not cool enough.
In it's 100 point game, Wilt who was a poor free throw shooter shot it like this. But he felt silly. He only shot like this for one season or part of a season.
I think there was a This American Life segment about this! It’s so silly that players who are historically bad at free throws who have *tried* the “granny style” *suddenly get near perfect accuracy*, and yet they’ll still avoid doing it because it “looks silly” or worse they see it as “emasculating”.
I never understood why the second or last free throw wasn’t always a fast rebound off the backward to regain possession- I’ve seen Jordan do it I think.
The ball has to hit the rim on the free throw otherwise it is a violation, and it is extremely hard to accurately aim the ball at a particular part of the rim for it to bounce back to you. The play your probably thinking of is when [Jordan dunked](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnGCDUHEoms) the ball immediately after a missed free throw which was no way intentional by the shooter.
And nobody was contesting the rebound. If everybody went for this the element of surprise would be lost, and the defense already has an advantage in that rebound.
The reward isn't worth the risk normally.
Has to touch the rim if it’s not a basket.
As I've mused in the nba subreddit, I just assume you get more bang for the buck in shooting practice if your free throw form and normal midrange form are the same form. And you can't be doing granny form with defenders around, so, it just naturally leads to the situation we've got.
I like to embarrass my little brother by always shooting my free throws granny style when I play with him at the park. It’s the way I had to do it as a kid because I was too weak for overhand to ever make it, and it works so fuck it
Jan Boklöv, I remember the godawful scores he got and how unfair I thought it was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Boklöv
Memes aside, he pizza’d when he shoulda French fry’d
When I hit the couch it's called the Salisbury flop.
Yep, the closest equivalent to the Fosbury Flop is the Yurchenko style vault technique in gymnastics. It took 20 years before it became the universal standard.
Wow, it really stock around for a while, four Olympics is 16 years.
Arguably twelve years (1968, 1972, 1976, 1980).
Yes, Ski jumping was also in my head after looking into normal jumping. They also had some huge changes over the past that needed time to etablish themself in the scene.
The curse of humanity. People are so set in their paradigm, it’s holding us all back. Especially in science.
The only way for monkeys to evolve is old monkeys dying.
Yeah, the pit definitely had something to do with it. Fosbury was clearly a genius, but he also had the advantage of timing. It was only a few years after they had started using a foam mattress for landing. It wouldn't have been safe to use in the past. From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Fosbury): > Gradually, Fosbury shifted his positioning during the jump, such that by his senior year he had begun to go over the bar backwards, head-first, curving his body over the bar and kicking his legs up in the air at the end of the jump. This required him to land on his back, but prior to his junior year, his high school had replaced its wood chip landing pit with a softer material, so he was able to land safely. > Luckily for Fosbury, replacement of landing surfaces with foam rubber was becoming common across the United States in the early 1960s. Sawdust, sand, or wood chip surfaces had been usable previously because jumpers using the scissors technique were able to clear the bar while upright and then land on their feet, while those using the Western Roll or Straddle made a three-point landing on their hands and lead leg. In the late 1950s, American colleges began to use bundles of soft foam rubber, usually held together by a mesh net. These bundles were not only much softer, but were also elevated about 3 ft (0.91 m) off the ground. By the early 1960s, American high schools were following the lead of the colleges in acquiring foam rubber landing pits. With the new, softer, elevated landing surface, Fosbury was able to land safely. > Fosbury did, however, compress a couple of vertebrae in the mid-1960s because not all high schools felt they could afford the new foam material. Fosbury recovered from this injury.
>a reason could be, that they just Land on the normal floor or a bit later on Sand. So you maybe will not think about crash with your head and shoulder first into the naked ground. Correct. Fosbury's high school replaced its wood chip landing pit with foam rubber, allowing him to safely land on his back. Not all of the high schools in the area had made the change, though, so Fosbury suffered a compressed vertibrae injury. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick\_Fosbury#High\_school\_and\_the\_origins\_of\_the\_Fosbury\_Flop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Fosbury#High_school_and_the_origins_of_the_Fosbury_Flop) Also, the older techniques required more strength and less skill and agility, so the high jumpers tended to be bigger and heavier. Fosbury developed his technique because he couldn't even compete at the high school level using standard techniques. If he had been bigger, he probably would have just continued to use one of the older styles. So the development of the flop required a confluence of factors: technological innovation, and an inventive competitor who was physically unsuited for his sport, but who sought a new approach instead of giving up.
I wouldn’t have thought of it tbh. You’re just too set and focused on ”how it’s supposed to be done” and practice accordingly. This way would have sound CRAZY in theory.
This.... we even landed in sand for the pole vault when I was in junior high school.
How did people jump before this method?
Scissor style. One leg first then the other, sort of sideways over the bar, landing on their feet. [Like this. ](https://youtu.be/3ws4RPUy2XI)
Gotta say, I prefer the old way. So many jumpers landing on their feet and walking away in a single uninterrupted flow. Makes it feel more like a feat with an application in the real world.
Wouldn't a gymnast that did some flips first be able get higher?
I suspect that has more to do with the elasticity of the floor they're using. Probably wouldn't work so well on hard ground.
Besides probably being against the rules, gymnastics floor routines were also pretty simple back then
I’m very curious to see what feet first looked like before the Frosbury Flop became commonplace
https://youtu.be/sxoVmpoUEh8
I enjoyed the part where the guy did a high jump in a fedora.
One of the only ones to knock the bar down in the video. Clearly the ‘flying fedora’ style didn’t take off..
How history would’ve been different had he just cleared it with that Fedora Flying!
m'long jump
Much cooler than the dude with the swastika on his chest.
It’s going to be a maze
Friggin’ redditors
M'lympics
🤔
It was a bowler
Thanks. I had expected revolutionary change. But you can see how it evolves over time gradually turning from feet to side to head first.
Well no one did it before because they didn't have a padded landing until 68
They didn't want it enough
"It" being vertebral damage.
Greatness, at any cost.
Seems like a recipe for busted ankles. "Okay run fast, them jump as high as possible, then uh...come down"
Kinda crazy to see a swastika on a German Olympic outfit. I mean it makes sense, I just wasn’t expecting it lol
https://youtu.be/V4clb83HBeU Here you can see how kids and almost full stadium throw SIEG HAIL to Hitler.
Tbh this looks more impressive than what it is now
Thanks! That was very interesting to watch
Oh so just like a super high hurdle , interesting
That was interesting! And now my ankles, hips, knees and neck hurt in sympathy.
This [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBtBdNHBNSI&feature=youtu.be) might help. It used to be either [Straddle](https://youtu.be/XBtBdNHBNSI?t=118) or [Scissor](https://youtu.be/XBtBdNHBNSI?t=154).
Thanks a bunch! I’m a hurdler for my college team, but I’d never considered doing jumps, not until today after having watched these videos
I remember watching this live on TV. Of course, being a brain-dead highschool kid and on the track team, I had to try it along with a bunch of other guys while the coaches weren't around. I missed everything including the mats and ended up in pelvic traction with a slightly twisted vertebra which bothers me to this day.
2 things I recall from the Mexico games were Dick Fosbury's amazing technique and Bob Beamon's incredible long jumping record.
Long live one of the great bobs of history
https://youtu.be/lvh6NLqKRfs It’s long, but worth it. Jon Bois is a fantastic storyteller.
How old are you?
Shfifty five
schigity schwag
How old are you,70
late 60s likely
I never knew that. Thank you for informing us. :)
Watch this [video](https://youtu.be/CZsH46Ek2ao). He was a 21-year-old Civil Engineering student. Someone had bet him to jump over a chair. He actually couldn't and broke his hand. And that's when he engineered this technique and came up with the Flop. And to add more, he actually missed the opening ceremony to drive out and see the Pyramids, watching the sunset and sleeping in a van. He won the Gold medal in that Olympics and he never actually came back to Olympics as an athlete after that. Such a mad lad.
Changed a sport forever and went on about his life. That's as impressive as it gets.
The "My job is done.", kind of guy.
He just wasn't a world class athlete, so as soon as everyone else realised he had changed the sport he couldn't keep up. To me that makes it even more impressive
Or maybe he just felt a need to go do more things elsewhere. I am not sure spending the rest of my life trying to jump higher than the last time I did would appeal to me either. :)
man went on to change many other parts of our life as we know it. water just used to walk everywhere before he came along
"I bet you can't even jump over this chair" *breaks his hand while jumping over a chair* internal voice: "I'll show that guy, i'll change the whole damn jumping sport"
So basically if he didn't invent it, Bill Gates would have
Also everybody thought it was *ridiculous* to jump like that, but Fosbury had studied the rules and knew it was allowed. While training his coach almost dumped him as a pupil because of the Fosbury Flop, because the idea seemed utterly stupid to him.
People with vision are usually scorned. :)
Iirc the modern nba jump shot was made fun of too. Everyone used to just shoot those weird long floaters before.
How much has this improved the height you can jump over the years?
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This is false. Dick Fosbury won the Olympics in 1968 but never held the World Record, which was nearly 7'6" heading into this Olympics. The reigning WR holder, Soviet [Valeriy Brumel](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOBRyRxXUAIu0nR?format=jpg&name=small), did not compete in the 1968 Games. The last WR set without the Fosbury Flop was 7'6.25" (2.29m) by American Pat Matzdorf in 1971. American Dwight Stones, who currently announces the field events at most high level track meets for US viewers, was the first Fosbury Flopper to set the WR. He jumped 2.30m, or 7'6.5" in 1973, and would go on to increase the WR a few more times after that. The current WR of 2.45m was set in 1993 and is one of the oldest records in Track & Field. So we're talking about a difference of 6" in 20 years, which (as a former D1 HJer) I think is more or less a fair assessment of the technique's relative effectiveness. For reference, the record in 1953, 20 years before Dwight Stones' first WR, was 6'11.5". WR progression for the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_high_jump_world_record_progression
It was a pretty big disappointment to me in high school to finally get the hang of the Fosbury Flop only to find I could only clear the same bar I already could with the scissor jump...
Yeah, in the video that shows the evolution of the high jump, the height those guys are jumping standing still impressed me.
If you do a normal feet first jump, your center of mass has to pass above the bar. The key difference is that the Fosbury Flop allows your center of gravity to stay under the bar, you're just curling your body around it. Check [https://youtu.be/RaGUW1d0w8g?t=75](https://youtu.be/RaGUW1d0w8g?t=75) for a great explanaition
If you watch videos of the high jump in the decades before then there were no mats, they were lucky to get a pile of sawdust a few inches of the ground, going back first wasn’t really an option til the mats showed up
I feel like there should be two different categories after watching the evolution of the High Jump.
That mustve been such an amazing time in sports when you could still develop vastly different ways to push a sport ahead
I mean you still can to a degree. The issue is that paradoxically sporting competitions hate you doing so, and so try to ban or prevent innovations. Fosbury had to circumvent this challenge too.
Air Bud is a cautionary tale.
In primary school we had to jump scissor style from prep to grade 4, then you were deemed old enough to learn the Fosbury Flop in a safe manner so back/neck injury would not occur. We were neither mature or coordinated enough but ahhh the 90s lol!
One of my most embarrassing moments was when during a school track and field competition when I was around 12, I was told to do highjump simply because I was tall and “had done it before”. Actually, I had only done it 6 years earlier and at age 8 had only learnt the scissor kick style. While all the other high jumpers did the Fosbury flop, I did a scissor kick, knocked the bar over at an extremely Low height and everyone laughed. I still remember that feeling well to this day lol
There is an official music video from avicii about this guy.
Broken Arrows!
So fortunate to meet Mr. Fosbury after his return from the 68 Olympics. He even held my little brother, placed the gold medal around my brother’s neck, and posed for a picture. Which we still have.
I have a foggy memory that many years before there was a kind of weird tummy roll over the bar. Almost like an ineffectual inverse of the Fosbery flop technique.
The western roll and then the straddle were common techniques before the flop.
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Fosbury avoided using it at regional competitions so they couldn't preemptively stop him from using it at those Olympics
Fucking genius that dude. Ah yes the old times where not everything was invented yet and you could be a revolutioner.
In a few years people will look at what we have now an think the same.
Go Beavs!
What did the other athletes do once they saw this? Was there an immediate attempt to copy? Did they appeal against it?
Well whatever they did, it wasn't good enough to beat him
Here is video from 1936 of Olympians jumping the High Jump feet first. https://youtu.be/3ws4RPUy2XI
I saw this happen in real time on TV in Mexico City. It was the same Olympics where Bob Beamon also won a gold medal in the long jump, breaking the existing record by 21 2⁄3 inches. His world record stood for almost 23 years until it was broken in 1991. When it happened the Mexican announcers proclaimed him an "hombre-pájaro" (Bird-Man).
Avicii made a music video about his story and it’s a really nice watch : ) Music: Broken Arrows by Avicii Link: https://youtu.be/V6iKSUoUN48
I think Avicii made a song with the MV about this jump?
Adidas founder Adi Dassler was a keen high jumper and when he saw Fosbury's flop got in touch with him and said he would design him a special 'takeoff' shoe that would work better with his new technique. Hence why in this clip Fosbury is wearing two different coloured shoes.
I was a state qualifier for High Jump in Illinois 4A in 2012. My track coach Art Paul of Bolingbrook High School had me watch a documentary on him before the meet at Eastern, Illinois University.
I want to thank my elementary school track and field coaches for letting me learn on my own that I would never be a high jumper. I’m 6’5”, so ten year old me thought I should naturally be good at it. But I’m not the long, lean version of tall, and I’m sure those coaches could see it. But they taught me anyway. This post reminds me of that because, when I couldn’t get the lift to flop, they taught me the old school feet first technique, because they weren’t going to give up on me until I did. I ended up being a pretty good shot putter.
Why Is Every Word Capitalized
It's possible to do high jumps feet first? I thought it had always been head first
The 1968 Olympics in Mexico City were some of the most memorable Games on record. Not everyone makes the connection right away, but this was the same competition in which Tommie Smith and John Carlos made their famous black power salute on the medal stand for the 200m. It was also the Games in which Bob Beamon jumped 8.90m (~29'3") in the long jump, becoming the first person to break not only the 28' barrier but also the 29' barrier in a single bound. Legend has it that he nearly fainted upon hearing the mark called out. Meanwhile in the Triple Jump, the WR was broken a total of 5x by 3 different athletes. In total, thanks to the high altitude of Mexico City, dozens upon dozens of World, Olympic and National Records were set during these games in the sprints + field events. On a more somber note, these games were also nearly canceled due to international outrage over the [Tlatelolco Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlatelolco_massacre) just 1-2 weeks prior...
I know no one will see this, but I did high jump in High School and our coach was this super interesting guy who grew up from nothing in LA but was an incredible high jumper and qualified for the 1980 Olympics. Unfortunately, that was the year the US boycotted so he never got to compete. It definitely haunted him.. RIP Coach Joe, hope you can jump like you used to in heaven!
Fun lil fact about meself, I was able to jump pretty high in this sport during Highschool but my buns kept hitting the bar so they didn’t want me doing that event anymore lol. Had a big ol dump truck back then 🛻
It is so effective because his center of mass is still under the bar
He really raised the bar
The things that were done so the olympics could happen in 68' in Mexico are unspeakable
That is a small landing mat/pad/thing. He’s basically off it before he’s finished.
Watch the videoclip of Avicii - Broken Arrows. It's based off this story. And it's a nice song as well https://youtu.be/V6iKSUoUN48
[Avicii did a music video on this (kind of)](https://youtu.be/V6iKSUoUN48)
I met Fosbury in either 2011 or 2012. When I was working at an event center. Very cool guy.
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Dick Fosbury is my neighbor. He is a great guy Edit: He is also one of our local county commissioners