Olympic goes to Mexico.
The Olympic high jump changed for ever on October 20th 1968.
The location was Mexico City.
All was normal until a gangly,
21-year-old civil engineering student
in mis-matched running shoes did this.
That man's name was Dick Fosbury
and although it may not seem unusual to your eyes now,
in 1968 it was revolutionary.
On that day in Mexico City,
the Olympic Games saw its first Fosbury Flop
and it has rarely seen anything else ever since.
The high jump has been a part of the Olympic Games
since the beginning.
"Faster, Higher, Stronger," it's there in the motto
and down the years,
techniques have changed to inch that little bit higher.
What started with a standing jump went through a period
where scissors were the vogue.
Then a straddle, and the "Western Roll"...
..each a little better than the last.
But over in Portland, Oregon, in the mid-1960s,
the young Dick Fosbury was a lousy straddler.
He watched his hero Valery Brumel
break record after record,
but the only thing Fosbury broke was his hand.
Someone had bet him he couldn't jump over a chair
and he couldn't.
But that was before Fosbury tried something new.
He married up his engineering know-how with what his body
was doing naturally as he ran up to the bar.
Fosbury applied some mechanics
and learned that by arching his back,
a jumper's centre of gravity can stay below the bar,
even as the body sailed over it.
If they get into that perfect arch,
it's a mechanical advantage to use that technique.
Jumpers before took off from the foot nearest the bar
and span in the air to kick their other leg over first,
but Fosbury changed the run-up and flipped the technique.
Sawdust replaced sand,
then foam appeared for the jumpers to land on.
It was all in place for Fosbury to give it a try.
Out there in Mexico City,
Fosbury was already not like the other guys.
He didn't like to practise. He was a loner.
He missed the opening ceremony
to drive out to see the pyramids,
watching the sunset and sleeping in a van.
And his skills were as much in his head as in his legs.
Fosbury psyched himself up for each jump,
winning the 80,000 crowd
on to his side and getting them to will him over the bar.
When the newspapers first saw Fosbury jump before the Games,
they said he was like a "two-legged camel".
They dismissed him as a curiosity,
but this camel went through
the start of the competition
without knocking the bar off once.
There were only three men left at 2.20 metres.
All were guaranteed at least a bronze.
Ed Caruthers, United States,
and Valentin Gavrilov, Soviet Union, both joined Fosbury
over 2.20 metres, but Gavrilov couldn't get over 2.22 metres.
Caruthers couldn't get over 2.24 metres, but Fosbury,
like a champion, dug deep.
His leap over the bar at 2.24 metres
set a new Olympic record and won him a gold medal.
Fosbury never came back to the Olympics as an athlete
after that day in Mexico City, but his name sure did.
He said, "I think quite a few kids
"will begin trying it my way now."
The Fosbury Flop is now the only way to fly.