Straddle technique straight, and head and trunk pass the bar at the same time. Charles Dumas, the first high jumper to clear 7 ft, and John Thomas (silver medal at the 1964 Olympics) used this technique. Valeriy Brumel (gold in 1964) dove a little bit, his head going over the bar before his trunk. Probably the most extreme exponent of the dive straddle was Bob Avant, who cleared 7 ft. in 1961. Avant's technique was close to a pure dive, with just a small knee lift on his lead leg. The last world record jump with the straddle technique was Vladimir Yashchenko's
Straddle expose the investor to unlimited losses (on the call) or losses limited to the strike price (on the put), whereas maximum profit is limited to the premium gained by the initial sale of the options. A tax straddle is straddling applied specifically to taxes, typically used in futures and options to create a tax shelter. For example, an investor with a capital gain manipulates investments to create an artificial loss from an unrelated transaction to offset their gain in a current year, and postpone the gain till the following tax year. One position accumulates an unrealized gain, the other a