Franklin Jacobs

At about 1.73m, Jacobs looked nothing like a high jumper, and in 1978 he cleared 2.32m indoors in New York, a then world indoor best and 59cm above his own head. His explosive, almost springboard take-off from a fast approach made him the event's great curiosity of the late 1970s and the benchmark for every short jumper since. He never won a major outdoor title, but no one who saw him forgot how he jumped.