VOTE: Dick Fosbury.

180 THINKERS – Do you think that, flip-flopping, Dick Fosbury is right for the Wall of Fame?

As a young high-jumper in the early 1960s, Dick Fosbury had trouble mastering the standard technique, called the straddle. Instead he began doing the high-jump by approaching the bar with his back to it, doing a modified scissor-kick and going over the bar backwards and horizontal to the ground.

As goofy as it looked, it worked. Dubbed the “Fosbury Flop” by a Medford, Oregon reporter, Fosbury caused a sensation when he won the gold medal in the 1968 Olympics, jumping a height of 2.24 meters. The Fosbury Flop has since become a standard technique for high-jumpers. – Emile Wilmar, 180 Amsterdam