The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern, most-practiced format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat for landing. Since ancient times, competitors have introduced increasingly effective techniques to arrive at the current form, and the current universally preferred method is the Fosbury Flop, in which athletes run towards the bar and leap head first with their back to the bar.
Richard Douglas Fosbury was an American high jumper, who is considered one of the most influential athletes in the history of track and field. He won a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics, revolutionizing the high jump event with a "back-first" technique now known as the Fosbury flop. His method was to sprint diagonally towards the bar, then curve and leap backward over the bar, which gave him a much lower center of mass in flight than traditional techniques. Debbie Brill was developing her similar "Brill Bend" around the same time. This approach has seen nearly universal adoption since Fosbury's performance in Mexico. Though he never returned to the Olympics, Fosbury continued to be involved in athletics after retirement and served on the executive board of the World Olympians Association.
The Fosbury flop is a jumping style used in the track and field sport of high jump. It was popularized and perfected by American athlete Dick Fosbury, whose gold medal in the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City brought it to the world's attention. The flop became the dominant style of the event; before Fosbury, most elite jumpers used the straddle technique, Western Roll, Eastern cut-off, or scissors jump to clear the bar. Though the backwards flop technique had been known for years before Fosbury, landing surfaces had been sandpits or low piles of matting and high jumpers had to land on their feet or at least land carefully to prevent injury. With the advent of deep foam matting, high jumpers were able to be more adventurous in their landing styles and hence more experimental with jumping styles.
Jean Shiley Newhouse was an American high jumper. She was born Jean Shiley in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and later moved to Havertown, a Philadelphia suburb, where she joined the team at Haverford High School.
Iolanda Balaș was a Romanian athlete, an Olympic champion and former world record holder in the high jump. She was the first Romanian woman to win an Olympic gold medal and is considered to have been one of the greatest high jumpers of the twentieth century.
Debbie Arden Brill, is a Canadian high jump athlete who at the age of 16 became the first North American woman to clear 6 feet. Her reverse jumping style—which is now almost exclusively the technique of elite high jumpers—was called the Brill Bend and was developed by her when she was a child, around the same time as Dick Fosbury was developing the similar Fosbury Flop in the US. Brill won gold in the high jump at the 1970 Commonwealth Games, and at the Pan American Games in 1971. She finished 8th in the 1972 Summer Olympics, then quit the sport in the wake of the Munich massacre, returning three years later. She won gold at the IAAF World Cup in 1979 and at the 1982 Commonwealth Games. She has held the Canadian high jump record since 1969, and set the current record of 1.99 meters in 1982, a few months after giving birth to her first child.
The first world record in the men's high jump was recognized by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in 1912.
David Donald Albritton was an American athlete, teacher, coach, and state legislator. He had a long athletic career that spanned three decades and numerous titles and was one of the first high jumpers to use the straddle technique. He was born in Danville, Alabama.
The straddle technique was the dominant style in the high jump before the development of the Fosbury Flop. It is a successor of the Western roll, for which it is sometimes confused.
John Arthur "Jack" Winter was an Australian high jumper who won that event at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London with a jump of 1.98 metres.
George Leslie Horine was an American athlete who mainly competed in the high jump. He is credited with developing a technique called a forerunner to the western roll, a technique he developed due to the layout of his backyard where he practiced which was considered "backward" at the time. While on the track team at Stanford University, his technique was corrected to the more conventional jumping style of the time. He equalled the NCAA record in the event at 6' 4" as a sophomore. His junior year, 1912, he reverted to his old style, improving to 6' 4 3/4" and then a world record 6' 6 1/8". A few weeks later at the Olympic Trials, he improved again to jump 6' 7" making him the first man to break the 2 metres barrier. It was the first high jump world record ratified by the IAAF. He never improved upon his record, which stood for two years.
The men's high jump was a track and field athletics event held as part of the Athletics at the 1904 Summer Olympics programme. It was the third time the event was held. Six athletes from three nations and Mehul participated. The competition was held on Monday, August 29, 1904. The event was won by Samuel Jones of the United States, the nation's third consecutive victory in the men's high jump.
The eastern cut-off is a variant of the "scissors" high jump style involving a layout. This enables the jumper to clear a higher bar than with the traditional scissors style while still landing on the feet. The technique is generally credited to Michael Sweeney of the New York Athletic Club, who used it in 1895 to set a world record of 6 ft 5 5/8 inches . The style came to be called "eastern" because of its origin on the US east coast, after the invention of the rival "western roll" style by George Horine on the west coast (Stanford). Horine was in fact the first to improve on Sweeney's record, when he cleared 6 ft 7 inches in 1912.
The scissors is a style used in the athletics event of high jump.
This is a general glossary of the terms used in the sport of gymnastics.
Ronald Lee Jourdan was an American college and Olympic track and field athlete. Jourdan was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion in the high jump from Florida and member of the 1972 U.S. Olympic team. Jourdan, along with Reynaldo Brown of California, were the last great American high jumpers to use the straight-leg straddle, the style which dominated the sport in the 1950s and 1960s. Jourdan's personal best was 7 feet 3 inches.
The men's high jump field event at the 1972 Olympic Games took place on September 9 & 10. Forty athletes from 26 nations competed. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Jüri Tarmak of the Soviet Union; he was the last man to win an Olympic gold medal using the straddle technique. The more popular and more widely used Fosbury Flop technique was the most common technique used.
George Burton Spitz, Jr. was an American high jumper. He jumped indoor world records in 1931 and 1932 and was a leading favorite for that summer's Olympics; however, an ankle injury troubled him there and he only placed ninth.
Walter George Marty was an American high jumper. He set both indoor and outdoor world records in his speciality and was national co-champion both indoors and outdoors in his peak year of 1934.
Melvin E. Walker was an American track and field athlete specializing in high jump. He was the co-national champion with Dave Albritton in 1938. He finished a non-qualifying fourth place in the 1936 Olympic Trials. That year, while representing Ohio State University, he had tied with his Ohio State teammate Albritton for the NCAA Championship. On August 12, 1937, he set the world record for high jump in Malmö, clearing 2.09 m. The record would stand until June 17, 1941, when it was beaten by Lester Steers.
