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Fosbury Flop

en.wikipedia.org

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Re: Fosbury Flop

#2
Back in high school I was a state almost-champion in high jump a few times. The technique doesn’t leave much room for error once the bar is taller than the jumper. Sure was a lot of fun though.

Re: Fosbury Flop

#3
Dick Fosbury died last year. I love the story of him arriving at the Olympics, as a 21 year old, with his own technique that he has developed even as he was advised against it.

He was given a blue and a white pair of spikes by Adidas, and he wore one color on each foot.

He went on to win the gold medal, and his technique went on to dominate the sport.

Re: Fosbury Flop

#4
Interestingly the page mentions that the jump was possible because of better landing sites (made of foam). Really surprising !

Re: Fosbury Flop

#5
Got any picks for past, present, or future 'Fosbury Flops' of programming languages (which could use a game-changing technique!)? And no, language-X-on-ChatGPT doesn't count! :-)

Re: Fosbury Flop

#6

Dick Fosbury died last year. I love the story of him arriving at the Olympics, as a 21 year old, with his own technique that he has developed even as he was advised against it. He was given a blue and a white pair of spikes by Adidas, and he wore one color on each foot. He went on to win the gold medal, and his technique went on to dominate the sport.

Apparently he started to develop his technique already at age 16, which is seriously impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Fosbury

My grandfather was a high jumper in the former Soviet Union, and he crossed 1.85 m in the 1950s using the "straddle technique": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straddle_technique

Looking for the specialist terms in English, I found a paper with a bunch of geeky figures to compare the different techniques :) https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-mechanics-of-the-c...

Re: Fosbury Flop

#7

Dick Fosbury died last year. I love the story of him arriving at the Olympics, as a 21 year old, with his own technique that he has developed even as he was advised against it. He was given a blue and a white pair of spikes by Adidas, and he wore one color on each foot. He went on to win the gold medal, and his technique went on to dominate the sport.

Similarly[^1], Pete Gogolok transformed NFL placekicking:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Gogolak

https://time.com/6590292/super-bowl-field-goal-kick-history-...

Other examples of a single athlete transforming a sport?

[^1]: Gogolak didn't invent a new kicking technique—he kicked like he knew from soccer. But he was the first to kick this way in the NFL. So I realize it's not quite the same as Fosbury.

Re: Fosbury Flop

#8
post #5

Got any picks for past, present, or future 'Fosbury Flops' of programming languages (which could use a game-changing technique!)? And no, language-X-on-ChatGPT doesn't count! :-)

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Re: Fosbury Flop

#9
post #7

Dick Fosbury died last year. I love the story of him arriving at the Olympics, as a 21 year old, with his own technique that he has developed even as he was advised against it. He was given a blue and a white pair of spikes by Adidas, and he wore one color on each foot. He went on to win the gold medal, and his technique went on to dominate the sport.

Similarly[^1], Pete Gogolok transformed NFL placekicking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Gogolak https://time.com/6590292/super-bowl-field-goal-kick-history-... Other examples of a single athlete transforming a sport? [^1]: Gogolak didn't invent a new kicking technique—he kicked like he knew from soccer. But he was the first to kick this way in the NFL. So I realize it's not quite the same as Fosbury.

skateboarding is full of this stuff, its a bit different since there's usually no objective measurement like height, but take the Ollie and the Kickflip for example.

Re: Fosbury Flop

#10
post #2

Back in high school I was a state almost-champion in high jump a few times. The technique doesn’t leave much room for error once the bar is taller than the jumper. Sure was a lot of fun though.

[deleted]
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