Which high-jump technique did Dick Fosbury use to win the 1968 Olympic title?

Dick Fosbury used the Fosbury Flop to win the 1968 Olympic high-jump title.

The technique involves approaching the bar on a curved run, taking off with one foot, and passing over the bar backward with the shoulders first. The jumper then arches the back and clears the bar before landing on the shoulders and upper back on a foam landing mat. Fosbury developed the method as a teenager in Oregon during the 1960s.

At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Fosbury cleared 2.24 metres to win the gold medal. His style looked unconventional because earlier successful jumpers commonly used techniques such as the straddle or Western roll. The deep landing pits introduced in the modern era made a backward landing safer than it would have been on earlier sand surfaces. The flop eventually became the dominant high-jump technique because it lets athletes place their centre of mass below the bar while their body passes over it.