Week in Review: Breaking barriers while setting records
Moore surpasses seven meters in long jump and 15 meters in triple jump for first time in NCAA Championships
Of the seven athletes who set or tied a collegiate record in an individual event in the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships at the Albuquerque Convention Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico last Friday and Saturday, Jasmine Moore of the University of Florida is the one who intrigues me most.
It’s not that I do not have the utmost respect for the collegiate-record setting performances by Julien Alfred of Texas in the women’s 60- and 200-meter dashes, Britton Wilson of Arkansas in the women’s 400 meters, Ackera Nugent of Arkansas in the women’s 60 hurdles, Jaydon Hibbert of Arkansas in the men’s triple jump, and Kyle Garland of Georgia in the men’s heptathlon. And I was very impressed by Sondre Guttormsen of Princeton when he tied the collegiate record in the men’s pole vault.
However, Moore broke two significant metric barriers in setting a combined four collegiate records during the two-day meet.
The first barrier – seven meters in the women’s long jump – was topped by Moore on her first attempt of the competition on Friday when she leapt 7.03 (23 feet 0¾ inch) to better the previous collegiate – as well as NCAA championships meet – record of 6.93 (22-9) set by Tara Davis of Texas in 2021. It also bested Moore’s previous best of 6.91 (22-8) that she set in the winning the Southeastern Conference Championships two weeks earlier.
The second barrier – 15 meters in the women’s triple jump – was bettered by Moore in both the second and sixth rounds of the competition on Saturday when she bounded 15.08 (49-5¾) and 15.12 (49-7¼), respectively.
Those two jumps came after the Gator junior had leaped 14.74 (48-4½) on her first attempt to better her collegiate record of 14.55 (47-9) from last year. In fact, all five of Moore’s fair jumps on Saturday were longer than her previous collegiate best, and further than the previous American indoor record of 14.64 (48-0½) set by Tori Franklin at the same facility in 2020.
“Coach Nic [Petersen] and Coach [Mike] Holloway have been calling me 1-5-7 because they know the magic numbers of 15 meters and seven meters” Moore said in a post of the NBC Sports site. “So to break both of them this weekend, I’m just super emotional and very, very grateful.”
In addition to all of the previously mentioned statistics, Moore’s 7.03 and 15.12 efforts were the best in the world this year, with the 7.03 moving her into a tie for third on the all-time U.S. performer list and the 15.12 ranking fifth on the all-time world list. In addition, and perhaps just as impressive to me, is the fact that outside of defending Olympic and three-time World champion Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela, no woman has jumped as far as Moore since 2016.
That’s when Caterine Ibarguen of Colombia bounded 15.17 (49-9¼) to win the Olympic title in the Games in Rio de Janeiro.
A 20-year-old Rojas finished second to the 32-year-old Ibarguen in that meet, but she defeated her Colombian rival for the 2017 World title in London and was the No. 1-ranked triple jumper in the world by Track & Field News for the 2017, ’19, ’21, and ’22 seasons.
One measure of the dominance of the 6-foot-3½ (1.92 meters) Rojas can be appreciated in the following statistics: From 2019-22, she had a combined – indoors and outdoors – 23 meets in which she bounded 15 meters or further, including world records of 15.74 (51-7¾) indoors and 15.67 (51-5) outdoors.
The rest of the world’s jumpers combined to top 15 meters in two meets during that four-year span.
“Of course you watch Rojas do it, and it looks so easy,” Moore said about triple jumping 15 meters. “Of course I was just like, okay, this is my goal one day. So for it to happen here, indoors, was just crazy. Twice.”
Add Moore: A question I now have is can Moore one day offer a serious challenge to Rojas in the triple jump?
The results of one meet held in a facility with great runways and at an elevation of nearly 5,000 feet that aids performances in the sprints, hurdles, and jumps, does not guarantee future success. But it does make the 21-year-old Moore the brightest women’s triple jump prospect the U.S. has had since the event was first contested at the global title level in the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.
Moore, who was at Georgia for two years before transferring to Florida prior to the start of the 2021-22 academic year, was very involved with cheerleading from the second grade through the end of middle school.
She said during a March 7 interview on a local ESPN affiliate (WRUF 98.1 FM) in Gainesville that she “loved to tumble and whip around. . . and always had a bunch of energy that way.”
She also said during the interview that her mom had been a jumper at Florida State and that led her to eventually give the long jump and triple jump a try.
Her talents were quickly evident as she had bests of 5.89 (19-4) in the long jump and 12.23 (40-1½) in the triple jump as an eighth-grade middle school student before she raised those marks to 6.19 (20-3¾) and 12.85 (42-1¾) as a freshman at Lake Ridge High School in Mansfield, Texas.
She graduated from high school in 2019 with bests of 6.39 (20-11¾) and 13.67 (44-10) before improving to 6.47 (21-2¾) and 13.90 (45-7¼) during the 2020 indoor collegiate season that was called days before the NCAA championships due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She represented the U.S. in the triple jump in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021, but placed 23rd during the qualifying round in which the top 12 advanced to the final. Her performances improved in the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon last July, but she finished a non-qualifying 13th in both the long jump and triple jump.
However, her stature rose considerably with her performances in the NCAA meet, and I suspect that has led her and her coaches to re-examine how they are going to approach the outdoor collegiate and post-collegiate season, as well as what are the next steps she needs to take in order to give Rojas — who has not competed indoors this year — a serious run for her money.
Check out my detailed reports on the 2023 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships at the Albuquerque Convention Center from March 10-11: Women Day One, Men Day One, Women Day Two, Men Day Two.
Ultra-talented youngster: While Jasmine Moore’s best mark in the women’s triple jump came on her final attempt of the competition in the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships, Arkansas freshman Jaydon Hibbert bounded a collegiate record of 17.54 (57-6½) in the first round of the men’s event and chose not to take any more of his remaining five tries for a Razorback squad that won its 21st team title and first since 2013.
His opening-round bomb crushed his previous indoor best of 17.10 (56-1¼) that he had set in winning the SEC meet two weeks earlier and topped the previous collegiate record of 17.50 (57-5) set by Charlie Simpkins of Baptist College — now Charleston Southern — in 1986.
It also broke the previous world U20 (under 20) indoor record of 17.20 (56-5¼) set by Melvin Raffin of France in 2017, and was also farther than the U20 outdoor best of 17.50 (57-5) set by Volker Mai of East Germany in 1985.
Finally, Hibbert’s mark destroyed the previous Jamaican indoor record of 17.19 (56-4¾) set by Clive Mullen in 2017 and it came less than two months after his 18th birthday.
What’s next?: While Jasmine Moore of Florida set the most collegiate records — four — of any athlete during the NCAA indoor meet, Julien Alfred of Texas was not far behind her with three. And no one could match Alfred’s feat of setting six collegiate records during the indoor season.
Five of those came in the women’s 60-meter dash and one was set in the 200.
Alfred set her fourth collegiate record of the season in the 60 when she ran 6.96 in a semifinal of the NCAA meet on Friday and she lowered that mark to 6.94 in posting a runaway victory in the final on Saturday. That time moved her into a tie for second — with Aleia Hobbs of the U.S. — on the all-time performer list and was only two hundredths of a second off the world record of 6.92 that Irina Privalova of Russia ran in 1993 and ’95.
The final of the 200 was run about 40 minutes after the 60 and in that race Alfred slashed eight hundredths of a second off the collegiate record of 22.09 —set by Kentucky’s Abby Steiner last year — when her 20.01 clocking moved her to second on the all-time world list behind Merlene Ottey of Jamaica, who ran 21.87 in 1993. The time also gave her a commanding margin of victory over runner-up Favour Ofili of LSU, who ran 20.20.
Now the question is how much will Alfred’s indoor success carry over to the outdoor season?
Can she — and Hobbs, for that matter — use their success in the 60 indoors to propel them to greater feats in the 100 outdoors?
Hobbs placed sixth in the 100 in the World Championships last July, but Alfred false-started out of her semifinal heat after previously winning the NCAA title. But could this be the year when one or both of them are able to break up the Jamaican trio of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Elaine Thompson-Herah, and Shericka Jackson, who combined to sweep the first three places in the World Championships last year and in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021?
My apologies: Julien Alfred of Texas was so dominant in the women’s 60 in the NCAA Indoor Championships last Friday and Saturday that I failed to report on a couple of standout performances by junior Jacious Sears of Tennessee and freshman Kaila Jackson of Georgia.
Sears moved to second on the all-time collegiate performer list when she ran 7.04 seconds to win the second semifinal on Friday before finishing third in 7.10 in the final on Saturday.
Jackson ran 7.07 to finish second to Alfred in the first semifinal to move into a five-way tie for fourth on the all-time collegiate list before placing second in the final in 7.08. Her 7.07 clocking in the semifinals also tied the world U20 (under 20) record set by Ewa Swoboda of Poland in 2016.
Razorback of many talents: Femke Bol’s exploits in the women’s 400 and 500 meters during the indoor season led to a lot of people — myself included — deservedly touting the versatility of the third-fastest 400 hurdler in history.
After all, she opened the season with a world best of 1:05.63 in the 500 meters on Feb. 4 and broke the long-standing world record in the 400 when she ran 49.26 in the Dutch national championships 15 days later.
However, Britton Wilson of the University of Arkansas might have displayed more high-end versality than anyone during the indoor season.
The fifth-place finisher in the 400 hurdles in the World Championships last year set a collegiate and American record of 49.48 in the women’s 400 meters in the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships at the Albuquerque Convention Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Saturday to move to second on the all-time list. That was her second collegiate record of the year as she had run 1:25.16 in the 600 in her season-opening race on Jan. 13 to break the collegiate record of 1:25.80 that Athing Mu had set during her freshman — and only — season at Texas A&M in 2021.
For good measure, Wilson ran the 800 three times during the season, twice timing 2:02.13 and finishing second in that event in the Southeastern Conference Championships.
When Wilson capped her indoor campaign by closing the women’s portion of the NCAA meet with a 49.20-second anchor leg on a Razorback 1,600 relay team that ran 3:21.75 to better the previous collegiate record by more than two seconds, it reminded me of the superb performance she had turned in on the final day of the SEC meet last May.
In that competition, she ran what were then personal bests in winning the 400 in 50.05 and the 400 hurdles in 53.75 — the first time that double had been accomplished — before running scintillating 48.60-second anchor leg on a Razorback team that finished third in the 1,600 relay in 3:22.55, then the fourth-fastest outdoor time in collegiate history.
Perfect peak: One would be hard-pressed to find an athlete who timed their peak more perfectly than 60-meter hurdler Ackera Nugent of Arkansas during the indoor season.
The sophomore transfer from Baylor, who began the season with a personal best of 7.89 seconds, ran 8.04 and 8.00 in the heats and final in the Arkansas Invitational on Jan. 13 before clocking 7.98 and 7.88 in the heats and final of the Razorback Invitational on Jan. 28.
She then ran 7.98 in her qualifying heat of the Southeastern Conference Championships on Feb. 24 before running 7.81 to finish second to Kentucky senior Masai Russell (7.77) in the final on the following day.
Then came last week’s NCAA Championships at the Albuquerque Convention Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico when Nugent ran a collegiate record of 7.72 in her semifinal on Friday before winning the final in 7.73 on Saturday to edge Russell (7.75) for the title.
Nugent’s time in the semifinal cut three hundredths of a second off of the collegiate record previously held by Russell, broke the Jamaican record of 7.74 that Michelle Freeman set in 1998, and moved her into a tie for fifth in the all-time performer list with Lolo Jones of the U.S.
When John Anderson of ESPN+ asked Nugent after the race how she had been able to defeat Russell in the NCAA meet after finishing behind her at the SEC championships, she said Russell is a very good athlete who had been working very hard and deserved all the accolades she had received during the season. “But at the end of the day, for me, I’m the type of person that I’m a championship runner. So when it comes down to the last bit of time, I’m gonna perform.”
Crucial victory: I have no idea if Kyle Garland of the University of Georgia keeps a running total on how he has fared against other multi-event competitors in the decathlon outdoors or in the heptathlon indoors. But I thought he registered a critical victory in the heptathlon in the NCAA Indoor Championships last weekend because he defeated Ayden Owens-Delerme of Arkansas in the process.
Owens-Delerme had come from behind to defeat Garland by 11 points in the NCAA indoor meet last year before finishing well in front of him in both the NCAA Championships in June and in the World Championships in July.
The 6-foot-5, 190-pound Garland had smashed Owens-Delerme’s collegiate record of 8,528 points in the decathlon last May when he totaled 8,720 in finishing second to Garrett Scantling (8,867) in the USA Track & Field Combined Events Championships. However, Owens-Delerme totaled 8,457 to win the NCAA title ahead of second-place Leo Neugebauer of Texas (8,362) and third-place Garland (8,333), and he then placed fourth in the World Championships with a Puerto Rican record of 8,532 points while Garland finished 11th with 8,133.
Garland had totaled a personal best of 6,415 points in the heptathlon in the Texas Tech Invitational and Multis meet in late January to move to second on the all-time collegiate list. But had he lost to Owens-Delerme in the NCAA meet, I think people would have started to wonder if the Razorback junior had his number.
Garland made sure that didn’t happen in an emphatic way by taking a 155-point lead over Owens-Delerme after the first four events on Friday, and then added 59 points to his advantage by running 7.74 seconds in the 60-meter high hurdles and clearing 5.16 (16-11) in the pole vault in the first two events on Saturday.
Owens-Delerme did make up 93 points on Garland in the 1,000 meters when he ran 2:33.14 to Garland’s 2:41.36. But the Bulldog senior could not be caught in the overall standings as his total of 6,639 points narrowly missed the world record of 6,645 set by Ashton Eaton in 2012, and it crushed the previous collegiate record of 6,499 set by Eaton when he won the title for Oregon in the 2010 NCAA meet.
Owens-Delerme moved to third on the all-time performer list with an outstanding total of 6,518 points, but it was not enough to catch Garland.
Garland said he “had to stay true to my race” when he was asked during an interview with FloTrack if what happened in the NCAA indoor meet last year affected how he ran the 1,000. “I couldn’t try to chase him. I just had needed to run [my race]. I knew I just needed to stay within 18 seconds or so of him. . . I knew I had it in the bag when that last lap came up.”
Fun to see: During a time when Mondo Duplantis of Sweden has raised the world record in the pole vault to 6.22 (20-4¾), it can be easy to become blasé about an elite vaulter clearing six meters (19-8¼) in the event.
Therefore, it was to fun to watch Sondre Guttormsen of Princeton go wild after he cleared 6.00 for the first time in his career in winning the men’s pole vault in the NCAA indoor meet on Friday and tying the collegiate record that KC Lightfoot of Baylor set in 2021.
Guttormsen completed a unique double with the victory as he had become the first Norwegian to win the men’s pole vault in the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul, Turkey five days earlier. But he made it clear afterward that clearing 6 meters, the second of two national-record heights he made during the competition, was a huge deal.
“Six meters has been a goal ever since I knew what vaulting was,” he told John Anderson of ESPN+. “It’s fun to win titles. European champs was absolutely amazing. But I think the result is what really shows your improvement. And it really shows what kind of pole vaulter you are. And to do it here at the finals is freakin’ amazing. Yeah, I’m shocked.”
Double dominance: After watching Katelyn Tuohy of North Carolina State post dominant victories in women’s 5,000 and 3,000 meters in the NCAA Indoor Championships, it would not surprise me if she turns professional after the conclusion of the collegiate outdoor season in June. In fact, it might be more of a surprise if she were to return for her junior year.
I know she loves being part of the team at North Carolina State, but Tuohy is so much better than anyone else — except perhaps Parker Valby of Florida — at the collegiate level right now that turning professional would make sense when it comes to her development as a runner. I would also think that she could continue to train under the auspices of Wolfpack coach Laurie Henes if she were to sign a professional contract.
After setting collegiate records of 4:24.26 in the mile — that included a collegiate-record 1,500-meter split of 4:06.49 — and 8:35.02 in the 3,000 during the season, Tuohy entered the NCAA meet as a heavy favorite in both 3,000 and 5,000.
The winner of the NCAA cross country title in November, Tuohy was content to run in the lead pack for the majority of both races. But you never got the feeling someone was going to beat her, and when she decided to really step on the accelerator, the race for first place was over in a very short period of time.
Her winning times of 16:09.65 in the 5,000 and 9:10.07 in the 3,000 were very pedestrian by Tuohy’s standards, but there was no denying her superior level of fitness compared to the other competitors in each race.
Final tally: With the results of the NCAA championships in the books, here are some of the more noteworthy statistics for a record-breaking collegiate indoor season.
Overall, 27 collegiate records were set in 18 (13 women’s, 5 men’s) events and the collegiate record was tied in the men’s pole vault.
Thirteen of the 18 events in which collegiate records were set were track events, three were horizontal jumping events, one was a throws event, and one was a multi-event.
More than one collegiate record was set in the women’s 60-meter dash (5 times), women’s 400 (3), women’s triple jump (3), and women’s 60 hurdles (2).
Whether it was produced in a men’s or women’s event, or in both, collegiate records were set or tied in the 60-meter dash, 200, 400, 500, 600, 1,500, mile, 3,000, 60 hurdles, 1,600 relay, pole vault, long jump, triple jump, shotput, and men’s heptathlon.
My guess is we will never see another collegiate season like this one in terms of records set, but you never know. 😊
Successful defense: Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya won her second consecutive title in the Nagoya Women’s Marathon in Japan on Sunday when she ran 2 hours 18 minutes 8 seconds to easily defeat second-place Ayuko Suzuki of Japan (2:21:52).
The 28-year-old Chepngetich, who missed the world record by a scant 14 seconds in winning the women’s division of the Chicago Marathon in 2:14:18 in October, clocked 16:19 for the first five kilometers of the race and 32:34 for the first 10 kilometers.
She then came through 20 kilometers in 1:05:14 and the halfway mark in 1:08:47, which was 16 seconds faster than her split last year when she set a course record of 2:17:18 in Nagoya.
Chepngetich had a lead of more than three minutes when she passed 30 kilometers in 1:37:51. Although she slowed over the next 10 kilometers, run in 33:16, she came through 40 kilometers in 2:11:07 and won by more than three and half minutes.
Suzuki’s 2:21:52 clocking was a personal best, as was countrywoman Honami Maeda’s third-place time of 2:22:32.
Getting the rust off: Kristjan Ceh of Slovenia opened his season with a dominant victory in the men’s discus in the European Throwing Cup in Leiria, Portugal on Saturday.
The defending World champion won the event with a best of 68.30 (224-1) to defeat runner-up Alin Alexandru Firfirica of Romania (63.78/209-3) by more than four and a half meters.
The 24-year-old Ceh also had throws of 67.83 (222-6) in the sixth round and 65.67 (215-5) in the second.
Elina Tzengko of Greece had the top performance in the women’s meet with a winning throw of 63.65 (208-10) in the javelin.
The 20-year-old Tzengko, who won the European title last August, had her best effort on her final throw. Her second-best throw was a 61.78 (202-8) effort in the second round.
Solid 400: Fred Kerley of the U.S. concluded a three-week stay in Australia with a victory in the men’s 400 meters in the Sydney Track Classic on Saturday.
The defending World champion in the men’s 100 ran 44.65 seconds in a race in which Luke Van Ratingen of Australia placed second in 46.17. Kerley, 27, had begun his stay in Australia by winning the 200 in 20.32 in the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne on Feb. 23.
Other highlights from the Sydney Track Classic included Oceania records by Jessica Hull of Australia in the women’s 3,000 (8:31.81) and by Zoe Hobbs of New Zealand in the 100 (10.97).
Hull’s time cut three and a half seconds off the previous best of 8:35.31 set by New Zealand’s Kim Smith in 2007. Hobbs cut a tenth of a second off her previous Oceania record of 11.07 while breaking 11.00 for the first time.
Not so fast: World Athletics will not ratify the men’s 100-meter results from the Athletics Kenya Weekend Meeting competition in Nairobi on Feb. 24 and 25 because it suspects there was an error with the wind-reading equipment used at the meet.
Suspicions arose when the official wind reading for the 100-meter final was negative-4.8 meters per second, a race in which Ferdinand Omanyala and Samuel Imeta were credited with times of 9.81 and 9.94.
World Athletics will also not ratify Omanyala’s first-round time of 9.86 and his semifinal time of 9.91.
Omanyala seemed to take the setback in stride as he said in a post on the capitalfm.co.ke site that “the world record is just around the corner. I can smell it and it will be sooner rather than later before I set it.”
The world record of 9.58 seconds was set by Usain Bolt of Jamaica in the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. Omanyala ran his personal best of 9.77 in finishing second to Trayvon Bromell (9.76) of the U.S. in the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi in 2021.
Imeta’s personal best remains the 10.12 he ran in a qualifying heat of the Commonwealth Games last August.
Three for three: Sadie Englehardt of Ventura High School produced her third impressive performance of the year when she came from behind to win the girls’ championship mile in the New Balance Nationals Indoor meet at the Track in Brighton, Massachusetts on Sunday.
The Cougar sophomore has a well-deserved reputation for pushing the pace in races, but senior Tatum David of Richland County High in Olney, Illinois brought the field through 409 meters in 68.13 seconds, past 809 meters in 2:20.37, and through 1,209 meters in 3:32.21.
Engelhardt ran in second place at all three of those intervals and was still in that position with a lap left on the 200-meter track. She picked up the pace down the backstretch for the final time, but when David held her off, Engelhardt regrouped for the home straightaway and then edged past David with 25 meters left in the race on her way to a winning time of 4:38.65.
David finished second in 4:38.80, followed by junior Ellie Shea of the Emerging Elites club in Waltham, Massachusetts in 4:40.76.
Shea, who had won the two-mile in 9:49.82 on Friday and the 5,000 meters in 15:46.28 on Saturday, was a close third with a lap to go, but she was unable to keep pace with Engelhardt and David over the final 200 meters.
It was the second time this year that Engelhardt had outrun David and Shea to win a mile at the Track in Brighton. The previous race took place at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on Feb. 4 when Englehardt won the junior girls’ international race in 4:40.59, followed by Tatum in 4:40.86 and Shea in 4:42.08.
Engelhardt had preceded her win on Sunday with a winning time of 9:51.49 for 3,200 meters in the Don Green Invitational at Moorpark High on March 3.
Hit and miss: A trio of Newbury Park High School senior distance runners had mixed results in the New Balance Nationals Indoor meet.
Brayden Seymour ran a personal best of 9:00.44 to place 12th overall in the boys’ two-mile on Friday before coming back on Sunday to run another personal best of 4:15.09 to finish 33rd overall in the mile.
Lex Young placed third in the boys’ 5,000 meters with a time of 14:00.64 on Friday, but the Stanford-bound runner had entered the race looking to lower the national high school record of 13:57.04 set by Edward Cheserek of St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, New Jersey, in 2013.
The record did fall, but it was broken by Tyrone Gorze of Crater High in Central Point, Oregon, who ran 13:56.82 to win the race ahead of runner-up Daniel Simmons of American Fork, Utah, who ran 13:59.96.
Newbury Park’s Aaron Sahlman, the surprise winner of the boys’ title in the Nike Cross Nationals race in December, finished third in the championship mile race on Sunday with a time of 4:05.70 after placing a disappointing 12th overall in the 800 meters on Saturday with a time of 1:53.63.
Sahlman was in ninth place in the mile with less than two laps left in the race before finishing third behind Jackson Hediesch (4:02.25) of Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines, Iowa and Devan Kipyego (4:02.30) of St. Raphael Academy in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
In memory: Dick Fosbury, the 1968 Olympic champion in the men’s high jump and the person credited with changing the face of the high jump forever with his then-unorthodox way of clearing the bar, passed away in Salt Lake City on Sunday after a short recurrence of lymphoma. He was 76.
Fosbury, a native of Portland, Oregon, developed a technique in high school which later became known as the Fosbury Flop because he was performing poorly while using an old-style technique called the scissors. His coach tried to get him to use the dominant high jumping technique of the time known as the roll or straddle, but Fosbury returned to the scissors until he further developed his flop, which a USA Track & Field release described “as going over the bar headfirst and backwards while keeping your body horizontal to the ground.”
Fosbury improved his personal best by a foot — to 6-3 ¾ — in high school using the flop and his improvement continued at Oregon State University where he cleared 7 feet for the first time during the 1968 indoor season before winning the NCAA outdoor title by clearing a meet-record of 2.19 meters (7-2¼).
He then cleared 2.21 (7-3) to place third in the U.S. Olympic Trials in Echo Summit, California before winning the Olympic title in Mexico City with a Games record of 2.24 (7-4¼).
U.S. teammate Ed Carruthers, who finished second to Fosbury in Mexico City, said in a July 31, 2008 story in the Orange County Register that he thought Fosbury “was nuts, a real goofball, when I first saw him jump that way. But I gained more respect leading to the Olympics when he started having success with it.”
Canadian high jumper Debbie Brill was employing a similar technique called the Brill Bend around the same time that Fosbury was perfecting his flop, but his got an incredible boost when he won the Olympic title.
Although Fosbury did not make the Olympic team in 1972, nearly three quarters of the men’s high jumpers who competed in the Games of Munich that year employed the flop technique and for decades now all of the world’s elite high jumpers have been floppers.
In fact, Vladimir Yashchenko of the Soviet Union, who cleared 2.34 (7-8) in 1978, was the last high jumper who set a world record in the men’s event using the straddle technique.
Javier Sotomayor of Cuba set the current world record of 2.45 (8-0¼) in 1993.
Following his retirement from competition, Fosbury stayed active in the sports world and served as a member and later president of the World Olympians Association. He also was a highly sought-after motivational speaker. He helped to found an engineering company after graduating from Oregon State and served as its president until he retired in 2011.