the.com/highjump
Gravity's most personal insult, answered with a backwards leap and a shrug.
means A track-and-field event in which an athlete sprints toward a horizontal bar and leaps over it, landing on a cushioned mat, with the bar raised higher each round until only one jumper clears it.
from A plain English compound of "high" and "jump," both old Germanic words: "high" traces back to Old English "hēah," and "jump" is a later arrival, possibly imitative of the thump of landing feet. The event itself, and its name, settled into athletics in the 19th century — and the now-iconic backwards arch was named the "Fosbury Flop" after the jumper who popularized clearing the bar face-up, head-first, and feet-last.
- the flop
- Dick Fosbury revolutionized it going over backwards in 1968
- world record
- Javier Sotomayor cleared 2.45m back in 1993
- no hands
- Athletes touch the bar only by accident
- head first
- Bodies arch so the center of mass passes under
javier sotomayor — cuban high jumper who set world record of 2.45m in 1993
stefka kostadinova — bulgarian high jumper with women's world record of 2.09m set in 1987
fosbury flop — high jump technique where jumper goes over bar backwards, revolutionized sport from 1968 olympics onward