Fosbury Flop Fosbury Flop The Fosbury Flop is a style used in the athletics event of high jump. It was popularized and perfected by American athlete Dick Fosbury, whose gold medal in the 1968 Summer Olympics brought it to the world's attention. Over the next few years, the flop became the dominant style of the event and remains so today. Before Fosbury, most elite jumpers used the straddle technique, Western Roll, Eastern cut-off or even scissors jump to clear the bar. Given that landing surfaces had previously been sandpits or low piles of matting, high jumpers of earlier years had to land
Iolanda Balaș Her record of 1.91 m, set in 1961, lasted until the end of 1971 (beaten by Ilona Gusenbauer from Austria), when jumpers with a more efficient technique (the straddle technique, and later the Fosbury style) took over. After retiring from competition in 1967, Balaș married her former coach Ioan Söter, and taught physical education in Bucharest. Between 1988 and 2005 she was president of the Romanian Athletics Federation. She was also a member of the technical committee of the European Athletics Association, and in 1995 was elected to the women's commission of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). Balaș