I fancied myself to be a bit of a sportsman in my younger days. And I am talking of days, several, several, moons back. Volleyball, football, hockey, cricket-- I played them all. But it was athletics, be it sprints or jumps, when you were not dependent on many others that I enjoyed the most. High Jump, which, as the Olympics website helpfully describes, ‘you take off (unaided) from one foot over a four-meter-long horizontal bar’ was what I loved most. Soaring above the bar gave me a thrill.
The Russians were the champs in my days–with the dashing Valeriy Brumel being my hero. He set six world records between 1961-1963 with 7 ft 5+3/4 inches set in 1963, remaining a world record till 1971. Our only access to the events themselves were the grainy photographs of the newspapers or that wonderful sports magazine Sports
& Pastime whose demise in 1968 I deeply mourned.
Till all this changed with Dick Fosbury. It was in the Mexico Olympics that he won the gold in high jump using this never-used technique. The Mexico Olympics witnessed several dramatic events: Bob Beamon’s long jump record, the black-gloved fist protest of the 200-m sprint winners. But Fosbury’s high jumping is what is remembered. October 20, 1968, changed high jumping forever.
The Fosbury ‘Flop’, for it was just that, as it became known, involved ‘taking off at an angle, leaning backward, bending oneself into a ‘J’ shape, and going across the bar and landing headfirst into the pit’. When I first saw the photograph of Fosbury crossing the bar in his unique style, I was astounded.
The techniques all of us used were either the scissors, the Western roll, or the straddle--techniques which were not very graceful unless it was Brumel doing it. After Fosbury’s flop, I felt inadequate. I did not so bravely continue with my western roll as did everybody else in those days in India. Coaches had no clue how to teach anybody the flop.
Today, every high jumper of note follows the Fosbury flop. The present world champion, Javier Sotomayor, the first man to cross 8 feet also does the Fosbury flop. As for me, I ended my not-so-glorious athletic career with a whimper -- doing the hop-step and jump. I am still amazed at the sheer daring and ingenuity of Fosbury.
You don’t go around changing established athletic techniques unless you are an eccentric and a genius. Fosbury was both. He has now made his final jump - and I am sure God up there will be asking him to do a few of the flops and wonder at His creation!