Summer Olympic Games specifically the long jump, in which American athlete Bob Beamon jumped 8.90 meters. Beamon's world record would stand for 23 years. The 1968 Games also introduced the now-universal Fosbury flop, a technique which won American high jumper Dick Fosbury the gold medal. Politics took center stage in the medal ceremony for the men's 200 meter dash, where Tommie Smith and John Carlos made a protest gesture on the podium against the segregation in the United States; their political act was condemned within the Olympic Movement, but was praised in the Black Power movement. Věra Čáslavská, in protest to the 1968
Summer Olympic coins to participate in the program. This marked the first time that the International Olympic Committee participated in an international commemorative coin program. Summer Olympic coins Although the first Olympic coin can be traced back to 480 BC, the modern Olympics did not see its first commemoratives until 1951. The original concept of Olympic coins was that the Greeks believed that coins brought the general public closer to the Olympic games. The premise was that those who could not attend the games could at least have a tangible souvenir of the event. In 1951, the government of Finland authorized the striking