Western roll Osborn (1924), Walter Marty (1933), and Cornelius Johnson (1936). Johnson's record, (), was equaled on the same day by Dave Albritton, the first world record holder to use what we now call the straddle technique. At first, the straddle was viewed as just a variation of the Western roll, and indeed video of the 1936 Olympics shows Albritton using a conventional Western roll at lower heights. The straddle did not come to dominate the high jump until the mid-1950s, by which time it was recognized as a separate style. Walt Davis was the last Western roll jumper to hold the
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