A few years ago I was talking to my friend Kirsty about the research I was doing on creativity, and said I wanted to find creative stories from unexpected sources. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Steve Jobs have had their stories told time and time again.
I wanted to show that creativity is everywhere - and that it is a skill that helps us solve problems.
That’s when she asked me if I had heard of Dick Fosbury.
I hadn’t – so I looked him up.
And just in time for the Olympics, here is a story of trying new things, facing rejection – and persisting.
This is how creativity made Dick Fosbury an Olympic champion more than 50 years ago…
In 1963, Dick Fosbury had a problem.
He was competing in the high jump for his high school track team, but he was terrible at the traditional methods for clearing the bar.
But he realized that if he stretched out on his back and landed headfirst, he could jump higher than anyone else on the team.
“The advantage from a physics standpoint,” he said, “is it allows the jumper to run at the bar with more speed and, with the arch in your back, you could actually clear the bar and keep your center of gravity at or below the bar, so it was much more efficient.”
At that time, competitors would clear the bar using a scissors or straddle-style forward kick, drastically different from the method Fosbury was trying.
A year later, an Oregon newspaper wrote that Fosbury looked like “a fish flopping in a boat” when he did his jump, and ran a photo with the caption “Fosbury Flops Over Bar.”
From that point, his high jump method was referred to as the “Fosbury Flop.”
Other coaches and competitors criticized Fosbury’s method, but he wasn’t trying to change the sport.
He was just trying to compete.
“What I had developed worked for me,” he said.
“The criticism of other coaches and other experts didn’t really matter as long as I was meeting the rules and the standards.”
Fosbury placed third at the US Olympic Trials, good enough to qualify to represent the USA at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City – though hardly making him the favorite.
But on October 20, 1968, Fosbury showed the world his Flop.
And he flopped his way to a high jump of 7 feet 4 1/4 inches – taking home the gold medal and setting a new Olympic record.
It was the first American victory in the event since 1956, and also the international debut of Fosbury’s unique jumping style.
"I think quite a few kids will begin trying it my way now,” he said when the Games were over.
“I don’t guarantee my results, and I don’t recommend my style to anyone. All I say is if a kid can’t straddle, he can try it my way.”
Kids everywhere began to practice the Flop over the backs of their sofas and into piles of leaves in the yard.
Fosbury’s Flop soon became standard practice at track meets, and within a decade, almost every elite high-jumper was doing it Fosbury’s way.
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Here are some images that show how the high jump strategy has changed:
FUN FACT: Fosbury said that he was not the only person experimenting with a backwards jump in the 1960s. While he was flopping in Oregon, Debbie Brill was competing with a similar technique (known as the ‘Brill Bend’) in Canada.
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Keep Smiling - and Stay Curious!
-Beth