The Physics Behind the Fosbury Flop

The Physics Behind the Fosbury Flop

 

The Physics Behind the Fosbury Flop

The first Olympics Games were held in Greece in 1896 and have been held every 4 years since.

While athletes have gotten stronger and faster, in those 120 years, the core of most events haven’t really changed. The high jump was one of the 43 events from the original Olympics in 1896.

For nearly the first hundred years of the event, runners took one of a few styles to clear the bar; the straddle, Western Roll, Eastern cut-off, or scissor jump. But in 1968 at the Mexico City Olympic Games, 21-year-old Oregonian Dick Fosbury would make history when he jumped 7 feet 4 and a quarter inches above the ground, the first American to win gold in the event in over a decade.

Fosbury would become famous for his unique style, that would come to be known as the Fosbury flop, where a runner turned away from the pole, jumped, and arched their back over the pole headfirst. Fosbury’s style would become legendary and would revolutionize the event.

At the next Olympic games four years later, in 1972, the new Fosbury flop had already become the most commonly used technique amongst the 40 competing Olympians. And of the 44 Olympic gold medalists to compete in the high jump from 1972 through 2016, 42 used the flop including all the new world record setters.

 

Today it remains the most popular technique in modern high jumping. But how does the Fosbury Flop actually work, and what’s the physics behind this game-changing move.

Some visuals were used from the IOC and Ted-Ed for the purposes of educational explanation.

 

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