Dick Fosbury

Dick Fosbury, born Richard Douglas Fosbury and living from 6 March 1947 to 12 March 2023, was an American high jumper regarded as one of the most influential athletes in the history of track and field. He won gold at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City using a back first technique, sprinting diagonally toward the bar before curving and leaping backward over it, that gave him a lower center of mass in flight than the traditional forms of the jump and became known as the Fosbury flop; the jumper Debbie Brill was independently developing a similar technique, her Brill Bend, around the same time. Fosbury's technique saw near universal adoption among high jumpers after his Mexico City performance and remains the standard method used in the event. He never returned to Olympic competition but stayed involved in athletics after retiring, serving on the executive board of the World Olympians Association, and later entered local politics in Idaho, losing a 2014 run for the state legislature before winning election as a Blaine County commissioner in 2018 and taking office in 2019.