Athletics at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Women's high jump Athletics at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Women's high jump These are the official results of the Women's high jump event at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. The competition was held on 3 and 4 of September. Austrian Ilona Gusenbauer was the favorite after her 1971 European Athletics Championships victory. There were 40 jumpers and 23 qualified for the final making it a long day for the jumpers involved with such a big field. This competition still used a mixture of the straddle technique and the newer Fosbury Flop technique. Meyfarth at the age of 16 years, 123 days,
High jump event was won by Cornelius Johnson at . American and Soviet jumpers were the most successful for the next four decades, and they pioneered the evolution of the straddle technique. Straddle jumpers took off as in the Western roll, but rotated their (belly-down) torso around the bar, obtaining the most efficient and highest clearance (of the bar) up to that time. Straddle-jumper, Charles Dumas, was the first to clear 7 feet (2.13 m), in 1956, and American John Thomas pushed the world mark to in 1960. Valeriy Brumel took over the event for the next four years. The elegant Soviet