By Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw
Dick Fosbury, the creator of the ‘Fosbury flop’, who was born in Portland, Oregon, USA, has died at the age of 76.
The ‘Fosbury flop’ is a technique for improving performance in the high jump and was first used by its creator in the 1968 Mexico Summer Olympic Games to good effect.
Using this technique he set a world record, at the time, of 2.24 metres and won a gold medal.
The technique has been used by high jumpers to the present day.
It comprises a backwards head-first method of clearing the bar and, as such, became known as the ‘Fosbury flop’.
Fosbury explained the derivation of the ‘Fosbury flop’ name of the technique, which he originally referred to as the ‘back-layout’, as follows:
“….. it came from a caption on a photo that said ‘Fosbury flops over the bar’.”
And added:
“The context in Oregon was that our town was on a river, very popular for fishing, an hour from the Pacific Ocean. And when you land a fish on the bank, it’s flopping. That’s the action, and so its good description by a journalist, and I remembered it.”
There has been much discussion amongst sports lawyers whether the ‘Fosbury flop’ and other sporting techniques, such as the Jonny Wilkinson ‘cradle’ pre-kicking stance in Rugby Football, can be legally protected as some kind of ‘intellectual property’, such as a trademark or patent. These techniques/gestures certainly identify and characterise the sportspersons who have created and use them!
Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw may be contacted by e-mail at ‘