Dick Fosbury’s high jump gold medal from the 1968 Mexico City Olympics — which he won with the revolutionary Fosbury Flop — sold at auction for $158,600.
The medal was one of a few Fosbury items listed by Heritage Auctions, including a Team USA singlet ($64,050) that the auction house said was “almost certainly” the one he wore to win the gold medal.
Fosbury died in March 2023 at age 76 after a short bout with a recurrence of lymphoma.
“The medal being in my safety deposit box was not forwarding the process of getting his innovation and problem-solving brilliance out into the universe, to hopefully inspire kids somewhere,” his widow, Robin Tomasi, told NBCOlympics.com before the medal was sold.
Fosbury began working on a back-first high jump technique as a high school sophomore in Medford, Oregon. It was fully developed by graduation.
“I converted the old ‘scissors’ style, where a jumper would hurdle over the bar, and their legs would do a scissor kick,” he said in a 2017 interview for the NBC Sports film “1968" on the Mexico City Olympics. “I changed that style and modernized it to make it more efficient.”
The term “Fosbury Flop” was coined by the Medford Mail Tribune newspaper, which ran the caption, “Fosbury flops over the bar,” according to “The Wizard of Foz,” a 2018 book that Fosbury co-wrote.
Fosbury said he was the only person doing the flop at the 1968 Olympics. He broke the Olympic record with it, clearing 2.24 meters for gold.
“The crowd loved (the flop). The coaches hated it,” Fosbury said. “Especially the ones that had adopted the straddle (technique) and really worked to train and coach their athletes to use it. So they didn’t like some guy coming in with something that was different and beat them.”
The Fosbury Flop is now the standard technique in the high jump.
“His superpower was problem solving,” Tomasi said, according to NBCOlympics.com. “And I think (the high jump) was a problem for him.”
