People who changed sport: Dick Fosbury

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People who changed sport: Dick Fosbury
Like many American teenagers,
Dick Fosbury wanted to be a
professional sportsman but he
had a problem - he wasn't very
good at any sport. He didn't play
football very well and although he
was very tall he wasn't a very good
basketball player either. He decided
to try athletics. He tried running,
throwing and jumping, and of
all these events, he found that he
wasn't too bad at the high jump.
At that time there were two popular
styles of jumping over the bar.
There was the scissors, where the
athlete jumped over using his legs
like a pair of scissors, and there
was the straddle, where the athlete
jumped over face first. Fosbury used
the straddle. The best height he
could jump was 1.63 m. It wasn't
bad but it was a long way from the
world record of 2.23 m.
One afternoon Fosbury decided to
do something completely different.
Instead of jumping face first, he
turned around and jumped back
first. The results were amazing.
In a few hours he improved his
personal best by 21 cm. Over the
next months he spent all his time
practising, getting better and
better. He still wasn't winning any
competitions and most people were
confused by his strange style. A
year before the 1968 Olympics he
was the number 61 jumper in the
3 Read the article again. Answer the questions.
o Why did Fosbury choose to do the high jump?
Because it was the only sport that
he wasn't bad at.
1 How high could he jump after a few hours
practising his new style?
2 What did people first think about his new style?
world, and he only just made it into
the USA Olympic team.
When he arrived in Mexico
no one knew his name. On the
day of the high jump final he
walked on to the field with all the
other jumpers. As the competition
started, the 80,000 people in the
crowd began to notice that one
of the jumpers had a very strange
style. At first they thought it was
funny and laughed each time
Fosbury jumped over the bar.
After nearly four hours there were
only three jumpers left. The crowd
weren't laughing at Fosbury any
more - they were cheering him
on. The bar was at 2.24 m-a
new world record. The other two
jumpers knocked it off but Fosbury
flew over. The gold medal was his.
Dick Fosbury was now famous all
over the world and his Fosbury flop
changed forever the way that high
jumpers jumped.
3 How good was he at the high jump in 1967?
4 Was he the favourite to win the gold medal in th
Olympics? Explain your answer.
5 How do people remember Dick Fosbury today?