Patrik Sjöberg

Sjöberg's 2.42m in Stockholm in 1987 was a world record and is still a share of the European record nearly four decades later. Tall, loose-limbed and fast, he relied on a long approach and a big, relaxed arch rather than brute power, and he won the 1987 world title plus three Olympic medals across 1984, 1988 and 1992. His sustained run near the top makes him the flop's first truly long-lived star.