It’s quite possible that no individual has ever impacted their sport more than Dick Fosbury impacted high jumping. “Before Fosbury, many high jumpers cleared their heights by running parallel to the bar, then using a straddle kick to leap over before landing with their faces pointed downward. At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Fosbury took off at an angle, leaped backward, bent himself into a ‘J’ shape to catapult his 6-foot-4 frame over the bar, then crashed headfirst into the landing pit. Within a few years, everyone was high-jumping the Fosbury Flop way.” (I know the feeling. Before NextDraft, everyone wrote literal headlines.) Fosbury Flop high jumper Dick Fosbury dies at 76.